Vowels vs. Consonants

The split between vowels and consonants is the structural idea behind the entire name chart, and it is worth understanding as more than a calculation rule. Vowels are the sounds the voice makes when nothing obstructs it — the open, unimpeded, involuntary part of speech. Consonants require the mouth to close, shape and interrupt. Numerology reads this literally: the vowels are what comes out of a person when nothing is in the way, and the consonants are the shaping that the world sees.

So the vowels of a name, summed, give the Soul Urge — the interior, the wanting, the thing that does not need to be performed because it is simply true. The consonants give the Personality — the surface, the impression, the version that arrives in the room first. And every letter together, vowels and consonants at once, gives the Destiny: the whole person, inner and outer, and the work that the whole person is here to do.

The awkward case is Y, and there is no rule that resolves it cleanly. Y is treated as a vowel when it carries the vowel sound and no other vowel serves the syllable — Lynn, Bryn, Yvette — and as a consonant when it glides into a following vowel, as in Yolanda. W is occasionally treated the same way in combinations like "how". Most practitioners, faced with a genuinely ambiguous name, calculate it both ways and let the person decide which reading they recognise.

How to calculate

Sum the vowels (A=1, E=5, I=9, O=6, U=3) for the Soul Urge. Sum the consonants for the Personality. Sum every letter for the Destiny. Treat Y as a vowel only where it carries the vowel sound.

See also

Related terms

All glossary terms