How We Calculate Your Numbers

Every number on this site comes from the letters of a birth name or the digits of a birth date. This page gives the rules in the order the calculator applies them, the sources each rule rests on, and the points where published traditions part ways. Where a rule is a site choice rather than a quoted rule, it says so.

The two letter charts

The calculator shows both charts side by side in the letter table. The Pythagorean values are the ones conventionally taught under that name; the Chaldean values are Cheiro's, and their origin is older than the name. Sources, with pages, are in the source list.

The Pythagorean chart runs through the alphabet in cycles and assigns every digit from 1 to 9. The Chaldean chart has no 9: Cheiro writes that "no single letter was ascribed to it" (Cheiro 1926, p. 71). I and J both count 1; U, V and W all count 6. Sources checked 2026-11-08.

Reduction and master numbers

Every result is an integer. Reduction adds the digits of a number until one digit remains, except for the master numbers 11, 22 and 33, which are returned unchanged. The same function is used at every step: a month, a day, a year, a word subtotal, a vowel or consonant sum, and the final total.

Life Path

life_path = reduce( reduce(month) + reduce(day) + reduce(year) )

The month, day and year are reduced separately before they are added, and their sum is reduced again with the same master stop. That split is this site's reading of the 1926 stop, applied to each part: Taylor's page 56 adds the month to the day, reduces the year on its own, and notes that the day is never added to the year to obtain a master (Taylor 1926 p. 56). The two readings part wherever the stop lands at a different point: for 29 November 2009 the book's way gives 11 + 29 = 40 → 4 and 4 + 11 = 15 → 6, while this site gives 11 + 11 + 11 = 33 → 33; for 18 February 2009 the book's 2 + 18 = 20 → 2 plus the year 11 gives 2 + 11 = 13 → 4, while this site gives 2 + 9 + 11 = 22 → 22. Both differ from the popular habit of adding every digit of the date in one pass; the three readings are compared with real dates on Why calculators disagree.

The first row instantiates the handbook's example — September 4 in a year whose digits total 7, 1987; the second is Calvin Coolidge's date, which the book prints as the pair 11–9 (month and day form 11, the year 9) and which adds to 20 (Taylor 1926 p. 56). The page image is linked on Worked examples.

Expression, Soul Urge and Personality

All three come from the full name given at birth, as on the birth certificate. Nicknames, married names and spelling changes are not substituted. Accents are removed before counting (José becomes JOSE), and only A–Z letters count; spaces, hyphens, apostrophes and periods separate or decorate words and add nothing. Words are split on whitespace for the chart, and the four totals do not depend on word order.

expression = reduce(sum of all letters) · soul_urge = reduce(sum of vowels) · personality = reduce(sum of consonants)

A, E, I, O, U and Y are vowels. The finer rule — Y when it sounds like a vowel — is documented by Astrala's name-numerology article, but a calculator cannot hear the name, so Numerara always counts Y as a vowel and says so next to the Soul Urge card and on Name numerology. It is a simplification of the tradition, not the only reading.

A name with no vowels has no Soul Urge, and a name with no consonants has no Personality: the card shows a dash and a one-line explanation, and the other numbers are still shown. Word subtotals in the chart are display-only. The Expression is one raw sum of every letter, reduced once, even when a word subtotal is itself 11, 22 or 33.

Chaldean name number

Every letter of the full name takes its Chaldean value, the values are added, and the sum is reduced to 1–9 with no master stop. There is one Chaldean number, not a vowel and consonant pair: Cheiro does not split the name that way, and the calculator does not invent a Chaldean Soul Urge.

Cheiro says to use "the most used Christian and Surname" (Cheiro 1926 p. 71). Numerara always uses the birth name, for comparability with the other five numbers; for some people the two choices give different results, and the site states the difference rather than guessing which name is used most.

Personal Year

personal_year = reduce_to_1_9( digits(month) + digits(day) + digits(target year) )

This is a modern rule, not one of the 1926 handbook's: neither Taylor nor Cheiro has a personal year. The formula is Cafe Astrology's ("simply add the birth day and month to the year in question", Timing with Numerology, retrieved 2026-11-08), and the cycle is 1–9, so a sum of 11 reduces to 2. The calculator always uses the current calendar year at the moment the page is opened; a shared link opened next year recomputes it.

What the calculator does not do

• Numerology is a tradition, not a science. The site calculates documented rules exactly and says nothing about whether the numbers describe a person, predict events or should guide decisions.
• Latin alphabet only. Names in Cyrillic, Greek, Arabic, Hebrew, Chinese and other scripts are rejected with a clear message; the letter charts are for A–Z. Accents are stripped, which can merge distinct spellings.
• The birth name is used. A nickname, married name or spelling change produces different numbers, and the site does not advise changing a name.
• Chaldean uses the birth name here, where Cheiro's rule would use the most-used name.
• The date range is 1 January 1800 to today. Time and place of birth are irrelevant to these numbers.
• No meanings, compatibility, lucky numbers, daily or monthly numbers, or remedies.

How the content is checked

Each rule is matched to the page in the source that states it, and the published worked examples are recomputed by the same functions the page uses. The arithmetic is covered by tests against the recorded cases, and every example on the site is printed from those functions rather than typed by hand. The sources were last checked on 2026-11-08; if a link goes dead, the citation stays and the link is repaired rather than removed.

Sources

Changelog

• 2026-11-08: v1 — launch: life path, expression, soul urge, personality, Chaldean name number and personal year, with the rules on this page.