What is Chaldean numerology?
Chaldean numerology is a method of reading names in which the letters of the Latin alphabet are valued from 1 to 8 according to their sound, not their alphabetical position, and in which the number 9 is reserved for the result of a calculation. It also reads the compound number, the total before reduction: 13, 16 or 19 each carry a meaning of their own, which the single digit does not replace. The name used is the one a person is called by every day, and the birth number is simply the day of the month. The system is called Chaldean after the astronomer-priests of Babylon, but the one practised today was written down in 1926 by the Irish palmist Cheiro, who said he had learned it in India. This page gives you the full letter table, the method with worked examples, Cheiro’s compound numbers, what the real Chaldeans actually did with numbers, and the limits of the claim that this is the oldest system in the world.
- Letters are worth 1 to 8; no letter is worth 9, which only appears as a result.
- The compound number counts: Marie is 13, reduced to 4, and both numbers are read.
- The name you use daily is analysed, not necessarily the one on your birth certificate.
- The system was published by Cheiro in 1926; the Babylonians never wrote names with these values.
The Chaldean letter table
The table assigns each letter a value from 1 to 8. Letters with a similar sound share a value: the vowels A and I and the semi-vowels J and Y are all 1; the labials F and P are 8; U, V and W are 6. Cheiro also linked each value to a planet, in the Western order that puts Uranus at 4 and Neptune at 7, where the Indian system places the lunar nodes Rahu and Ketu. The two systems therefore use the same letter values but not the same planets, a point worth knowing before you compare readings.
Why 9 has no letter
Cheiro explained that 9 was held sacred and therefore never given to a letter; the explanation is his, not a Babylonian one, but it has a practical consequence. Since no letter is worth 9, the digit appears only when a total reduces to it, which makes 9 rarer in Chaldean readings than in the Pythagorean system, where I, R and the ninth letters all carry it. A name that reduces to 9 in this system has earned the number through its sum, and practitioners treat it as more significant for that reason.
Chaldean values of the Latin alphabet, with Cheiro’s planets
| Value | Letters | Planet (Cheiro) | Sound family |
|---|
| 1 | A, I, J, Q, Y | Sun | Open vowels and their semi-vowels |
| 2 | B, K, R | Moon | Lips and rolled consonants |
| 3 | C, G, L, S | Jupiter | Sibilants and soft palatals |
| 4 | D, M, T | Uranus | Dentals and nasal M |
| 5 | E, H, N, X | Mercury | Breath and nasal N |
| 6 | U, V, W | Venus | Rounded vowel and labials |
| 7 | O, Z | Neptune | Deep vowel and buzzing Z |
| 8 | F, P | Saturn | Hard labials |
| 9 | no letter | Mars | Result of a calculation only |
How to calculate a name, step by step
Write the name as the person is actually called: first name alone, first name and surname, or nickname, whichever is in daily use. Give each letter its value from the table and add them. The total is the compound number; reduce it to a single digit by adding its digits. Read both. Then take the day of the month of the birth date, reduce it if needed, and compare it with the name number: Cheiro considered a name whose number agrees with the birth number to be fortunate, and recommended changing the spelling when the two clash. The birth number cannot be changed; the name can, which is why the system is so often used to choose a stage name or the spelling of a child’s name.
Birth number and name number together
Someone born on the 22nd has birth number 22, reduced to 4. If their daily name is Michael, 22 and 4, name and birth agree twice over, which Cheiro would have called a strong harmony. If their daily name is John, 18 and 9, the practitioner looks at the relationship between 4 and 9 and, in Cheiro’s scheme, between Uranus and Mars. The method is simple enough to run in a minute; the interpretation is where the authors differ, and where the compound numbers come in.
Worked examples
Marie: M 4 + A 1 + R 2 + I 1 + E 5 = 13, reduced to 1 + 3 = 4. Compound 13, single 4. John: J 1 + O 7 + H 5 + N 5 = 18, reduced to 9. Michael: M 4 + I 1 + C 3 + H 5 + A 1 + E 5 + L 3 = 22, reduced to 4. Anna: A 1 + N 5 + N 5 + A 1 = 12, reduced to 3. Compare with the Pythagorean values of the same names: Marie gives 28 and 1 there, because R is 9 and I is 9 in alphabetical order. The two systems rarely agree, and that disagreement is the whole reason the Chaldean table exists as a separate method.
The compound numbers and their names
The feature that most distinguishes the Chaldean method is the reading of the compound number, the total before reduction. Cheiro gave each number from 10 to 52 a short title and a meaning, borrowed partly from the Tarot trumps and partly from his own practice. The table gives the ones most often quoted, with his original titles; later authors have softened or renamed several of them. Two names that reduce to the same digit are read differently if their compound numbers differ: 16 and 25 both give 7, but 16 is the shattered citadel and 25 is strength gained through experience.
Selected compound numbers with Cheiro’s titles (Book of Numbers, 1926)
| Compound | Single | Cheiro’s title | Reading |
|---|
| 10 | 1 | The wheel of fortune | Rise or fall according to the person’s own will |
| 11 | 2 | A muzzled lion | Hidden trials, treachery from others |
| 12 | 3 | The victim | Sacrifice, being used for others’ plans |
| 13 | 4 | Regeneration | Upheaval and change, not the popular bad omen |
| 14 | 5 | Movement | Risk in travel and ventures, gain through combination |
| 15 | 6 | Eloquence and magic | Gifts of speech, danger of using them for the self alone |
| 16 | 7 | The shattered citadel | Sudden fall of plans, warning against pride |
| 17 | 8 | The star of the magi | Rising above trials, a lasting name |
| 19 | 1 | The prince of heaven | Honour and success after effort |
| 21 | 3 | The crown of the magi | Advancement, achievement, recognition |
| 22 | 4 | A good man blinded by the folly of others | Illusions, living in a fool’s paradise |
| 23 | 5 | The royal star of the lion | Help from superiors, success in undertakings |
| 26 | 8 | Gravest warnings | Losses through partnerships and bad advice |
| 27 | 9 | The sceptre | Authority and reward for productive work |
- 13 in this system means change, not misfortune: Cheiro insisted on it, against the popular superstition.
- Numbers above 52 are reduced to a compound between 10 and 52 before being read.
- The titles come from Cheiro; the Babylonians left no such list, and treating them as ancient is a mistake.
What the real Chaldeans did with numbers
The Chaldeans were a people of southern Mesopotamia who gave Babylon its last native dynasty, from Nabopolassar in 626 BCE to the Persian conquest of 539 BCE, the age of Nebuchadnezzar II. In Greek and Latin, the word Chaldean soon came to mean an astrologer, because the astronomer-priests of Babylon kept the longest run of celestial observations in antiquity. Their arithmetic was sexagesimal, in base 60, which is why we still divide hours into 60 minutes and circles into 360 degrees. Their number mysticism is attested too, but it looks nothing like a letter table: Babylonian scholars assigned numbers to their gods and could write a god’s name with its number alone.
The legacy that is genuinely Babylonian
Three things we use every day come from Babylon: the 60-minute hour and 60-second minute, the 360-degree circle, and the twelve signs of the zodiac, defined as twelve equal divisions of the ecliptic in the 5th century BCE. The seven-day week, with each day under a planet, spread from Babylonian astrology through the Hellenistic world. None of this involves the alphabet: cuneiform is a syllabic script, and the Latin letters that Cheiro valued did not exist. A letter-based Chaldean numerology is therefore a modern system that borrowed an ancient name.
Numbers of the great gods in Babylonian scholarly lists
| Number | God | Domain |
|---|
| 60 | Anu | The sky, head of the pantheon |
| 50 | Enlil | Air and kingship |
| 40 | Ea | Fresh water, wisdom, crafts |
| 30 | Sin | The Moon, whose month has about 30 days |
| 20 | Shamash | The Sun and justice |
| 15 | Ishtar | Venus, love and war |
| 10 | Adad | Storm and rain |
- Base 60 survives in our hours, minutes and degrees.
- The twelve-sign zodiac is a Babylonian invention of the 5th century BCE.
- Babylonian scholars wrote gods as numbers, but never personal names as sums of letters.
Cheiro, the man behind the system
William John Warner, who wrote as Cheiro, was born in Ireland in 1866 and died in California in 1936. He made his name as a palmist in London in the 1890s, reading the hands of celebrities, and later published on astrology and numbers. Cheiro’s Book of Numbers, published in 1926, is the source of the letter table, the rule on the number 9 and the compound numbers used on this page. He said he had received the system from Indian teachers who had preserved it from Chaldea; no document supports the chain, and the planetary attributions he used, with Uranus and Neptune, could not predate the discovery of those planets in 1781 and 1846. His memoirs claim successful predictions about Queen Victoria, the First World War and the 1929 crash; they were written after the events, and should be read as a showman’s account rather than evidence.
How to use the Chaldean method honestly
Use it for what it does well: it gives a quick, consistent reading of a name as it is spoken, it makes you notice the compound number, and its table is easy to apply to any Latin-alphabet name. Do not use it to claim an ancient pedigree, and do not pay anyone to rename you on the strength of it. If a reading intrigues you, run the same name through the Pythagorean table on this site and compare: the difference between the two results is a better conversation starter than either result alone.
- Cheiro, 1866 to 1936: palmist, author, the source of the modern Chaldean system.
- His planets include Uranus and Neptune, discovered in 1781 and 1846, which dates the system.
- Compare a Chaldean and a Pythagorean reading of the same name before drawing conclusions.