Name Stroke Count Numerology
The Japanese system of seimei handan counts not letters but the number of strokes in the kanji of a name. The surname and given name yield five numbers, each from 1 to 81, and each has its own luck rating.
How the Calculation Works
The number of strokes in each character is counted, then added up according to five schemes.
- Tenkaku: the sum of the strokes in the surname. It is inherited and has almost no influence on destiny.
- Jinkaku: the last character of the surname plus the first character of the given name. The main number: character and personality.
- Chikaku: the sum of the strokes in the given name. Youth and inner inclinations.
- Gaikaku: the total minus jinkaku. Relationships with others.
- Sōkaku: the sum of all strokes. Destiny as a whole, strongest after the age of forty.
Each number is checked against a table: numbers are classed as favorable, neutral and unlucky.
Where It's Used
The system isn't limited to fortune-telling. In Japan, people turn to it when choosing a name for a newborn and when changing a name: seimei handan specialists pick a spelling that yields lucky sums.
Similar systems exist in China and Korea, where the strokes of characters are counted as well.
Why There's No Calculator
It requires a database of stroke counts for the traditional forms of the characters: seimei handan counts by the old, pre-reform forms, not the simplified modern ones.
The method is fundamentally inapplicable to a Russian name: there's nothing to count, since Cyrillic has no strokes in this sense. Transliteration into katakana gives a different number of characters and a different result, so within the Japanese tradition itself such calculations for foreign names are considered provisional.