The Five Grids of Japanese Name Analysis: Heaven, Personality, Earth, Outer and Total

How the five grids are worked out

The Heaven Grid is the total stroke count of your surname. It represents fortune inherited from your family line — something beyond your own control — so it is not judged for luck on its own.

The Personality Grid adds the stroke count of the last character of your surname to the first character of your given name. It is considered the most important of the five grids, reflecting your core personality and your fortune through the middle years of life.

The Earth Grid is the total stroke count of your given name, showing your innate disposition and your fortune from childhood into young adulthood. The Outer Grid is the Heaven Grid plus the Earth Grid, minus the Personality Grid, and reflects the impression you make on others and your relationships. The Total Grid is the sum of every stroke in your full name, summing up your life as a whole.

The 1–81 numerology table

The Kumazaki method maps each grid's number onto a table running from 1 to 81 to judge its fortune. The numbers 1, 3, 5, 15, 21, 23, 24, 31, 32, 33, 41, 45, 47, 48, 52, 57, 58, 61, 63, 65, 67, 68 and 81 are considered Great Fortune, while 6, 7, 8, 11, 13, 16, 17, 18, 25, 29, 35, 37, 38 and 39 are considered Fortune.

That said, a single number's fortune doesn't determine your whole life. A grid landing on a number considered unlucky simply suggests that area may need a little more conscious attention — and is generally seen as something you can compensate for once you're aware of it. Name analysis is best treated as a tool for self-understanding, not a verdict.

Stroke-counting conventions differ between schools

One point of frequent disagreement in name analysis is how strokes should be counted. The original Kumazaki method uses the older, traditional (Kangxi Dictionary) forms of characters, and counts simplified radicals by the stroke count of the character they stand in for — for example the three-dot water radical (氵) is counted as 4 strokes (as 水), the grass radical (艹) as 6 strokes (as 艸), and the movement radical (辶) as 7 strokes (as 辵).

Other schools simply use the modern, standard stroke count instead, so the same name can produce a different result depending on which school calculated it. Since there's no settled consensus on which approach is "correct," it's entirely normal to see different results across different sites.

How this site calculates it

This site holds an internal dictionary of roughly 1,500 kanji, hiragana and katakana characters commonly used in names, and counts strokes using the modern, standard forms. Following Kumazaki convention, however, the kanji numerals one through ten are counted by the stroke count of their numeric meaning (一 = 1 stroke, 十 = 10 strokes) rather than their literal shape.

For rare characters not in the dictionary, a deterministic fallback estimates a stroke count from the character's Unicode code point. This estimate is only approximate, so treat any result built on it as a rough reference rather than an exact figure.

The lucky colour is drawn from the element associated with the Total Grid's number, the lucky item from the Personality Grid's number, and the lucky direction from the Outer Grid's number.

Frequently asked questions

Why do different sites give different stroke counts?

Schools differ on whether to count traditional or modern character forms, how to count radicals such as the water radical, and whether to add a 'spirit number' of one for single-character surnames. This site applies one consistent standard, described above, but other schools may differ.

How are hiragana and katakana names counted?

Each kana is counted by its strokes, but conventions vary by character shape, so results can differ between sites.

Does my fortune change when I take a new surname on marriage?

The Heaven, Personality, Outer and Total grids all change with the surname, so the reading changes too. The usual approach is to read the maiden name for the years it was used and the new name thereafter.

My name came out with an unlucky number. What should I do?

Name analysis reads one facet of a name; it does not decide a life. Some people use a pen name or trade name for everyday purposes, and it is sensible to weigh the result alongside other methods rather than on its own.

Can non-Japanese names be analysed?

Alphabetic names have no stroke count, so they are usually outside the scope of this method. Numerology, which converts letters to numbers, is the more natural system for them.