The Letter Values

Your date of birth gives you the road. Your name gives you what you brought to walk it with, what you want underneath it all, and the face you show at the front door. To read any of that, you first need to turn the letters into numbers, and that is all this page does.

The table

In the Pythagorean system, the one I use, the alphabet is simply counted out in rows of nine. A is 1, B is 2, and so on to I, which is 9. Then you start again: J is 1, K is 2, through to R, which is 9. Then once more: S is 1, T is 2, through to Z, which lands on 8.

Laid out by number, it looks like this.

• 1: A, J, S
• 2: B, K, T
• 3: C, L, U
• 4: D, M, V
• 5: E, N, W
• 6: F, O, X
• 7: G, P, Y
• 8: H, Q, Z
• 9: I, R

You do not need to memorise it. Write it on a card and keep it in your deck box or your diary. After you have done three or four names, you will find you know most of it anyway.

Vowels and consonants

Your name gives three main numbers, and the difference between them is which letters you count.

Your Destiny number, which some books call the Expression number, uses every letter of your full birth name, middle names and all. It describes the talents and the pull you arrived with, the thing you are here to express.

Your Soul Urge, also called the Heart's Desire, uses the vowels only. The vowels are the breath of a name, the sounds that come from inside, and they describe what you want when nobody is asking.

Your Personality uses the consonants only. The consonants are the hard edges of a name, the shape it makes from outside, and they describe how other people see you before they know you.

The vowels are A, E, I, O and U. Everything else is a consonant, with one letter that needs a rule of its own.

The Y rule

Y can do the job of a vowel or the job of a consonant, so you look at the letters on either side of it.

If neither neighbour is a vowel, the Y is carrying the vowel sound and it counts as a vowel. The Y in Lynn sits between L and N, so in Lynn it is a vowel, worth 7.

If a vowel sits on either side of it, the Y counts as a consonant. In Hayes the Y sits between A and E, so it is a consonant. In Taylor it sits next to the A, so it is a consonant there too, still worth 7, but counted with the consonants.

The Y is worth 7 either way. The only question is which pile it goes in. If your name has a Y in it, look at its neighbours before you decide, and do the sum twice.

A name worked letter by letter

Here is a full example. Sarah Jane Mitchell is an invented woman I use across these pages. She was given that name at birth and has never changed it, so there is only one set of numbers to find.

Destiny: every letter

Sarah is S 1, A 1, R 9, A 1, H 8. That is 1 plus 1 plus 9 plus 1 plus 8, which is 20.

Jane is J 1, A 1, N 5, E 5. That is 1 plus 1 plus 5 plus 5, which is 12.

Mitchell is M 4, I 9, T 2, C 3, H 8, E 5, L 3, L 3. That is 4 plus 9 plus 2 plus 3 plus 8 plus 5 plus 3 plus 3, which is 37.

Now the whole name: 20 plus 12 plus 37 is 69. Then 6 plus 9 is 15, and 1 plus 5 is 6.

Sarah's Destiny is 6. She came here to care, to take responsibility, and to hold people and home together. The Destiny post in the daily posts has a line for each number.

Soul Urge: the vowels

The vowels in Sarah Jane Mitchell are the two A's in Sarah, the A and E in Jane, and the I and E in Mitchell. There is no Y to worry about.

That is 1 plus 1 plus 1 plus 5 plus 9 plus 5, which is 22.

22 is a Master Number, so it stays as it is. Sarah's Soul Urge is a Master 22. Underneath the caring 6 of her Destiny, what she wants is to build something real and lasting that outlives her. That is a big want to carry, and a 22 often spends its early years living on the root 4 before it grows into the Master.

Personality: the consonants

The consonants in Sarah are S 1, R 9 and H 8, which is 18. In Jane they are J 1 and N 5, which is 6. In Mitchell they are M 4, T 2, C 3, H 8, L 3 and L 3, which is 23.

18 plus 6 plus 23 is 47, and 4 plus 7 is 11. Another Master. Sarah's Personality is 11, so people meet someone sensitive and switched on, who seems to know what they are feeling before they say it.

Checking the working

There is a neat check built into this. The vowels and the consonants together make up every letter, so the Soul Urge total and the Personality total must add back to the Destiny total. 22 plus 47 is 69. It does, so the working is right.

Use that check every time you do a name. It catches a dropped letter faster than anything else I know.

What the letters leave out

While the name is laid out in front of you, look at which numbers appear among the letter values. Sarah's letters carry 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 8 and 9. There is no 6 and no 7 anywhere in her name. The numbers missing from a name are its Karmic Lessons, the qualities this lifetime asks you to develop because you did not bring them ready made, and they have a page of their own.

Go figure: a woman whose Destiny is 6 has no 6 in her name. That happens more often than you would think, and it is exactly the kind of thing a chart is for.

Your turn

Write out your full name as it appears on your birth certificate. Put the number under every letter. Then do the three sums, Destiny, Soul Urge and Personality, and check that the second and third add back to the first. If you have changed your name since, do the new one too, and see where the two agree.

You will be your own teacher. The letters have been waiting a long time for you to read them.

If you would like your own numbers read as part of a full chart, my readings are here.

Related pages
Kabbalah Numerology