How the Love Calculator Works
The Love Calculator is a game. You type two names, and it gives you a compatibility score. There is no science behind it, and it cannot know anything about you or your relationship. It is a fixed recipe that turns letters into a number, so the same two names always give the same score.
The steps
- Clean the names. Spaces are removed and all the letters are changed to lower case, so "Sam", "sam" and " Sam " are the same.
- Put the names in alphabetical order, and join them into one line. This makes the score the same whichever name you type first.
- Add up the letters. Each letter has a character code (for example a = 97, b = 98). The code is multiplied by the position of the letter in the line (1 for the first, 2 for the second, and so on), and the results are added up. After each step, the total is divided by 101 and only the remainder is kept, so it always stays from 0 to 100.
- Change it to a score. The number from 0 to 100 is spread over the range 45 to 100:
score = round(45 + number x 55 / 100)
Worked example: Alex and Sam
The names in order are "alex" and "sam", so the line is alexsam. The letters have the codes 97, 108, 101, 120, 115, 97 and 109, and the positions are 1 to 7.
| Letter | Code | Position | Code x position |
|---|---|---|---|
| a | 97 | 1 | 97 |
| l | 108 | 2 | 216 |
| e | 101 | 3 | 303 |
| x | 120 | 4 | 480 |
| s | 115 | 5 | 575 |
| a | 97 | 6 | 582 |
| m | 109 | 7 | 763 |
The remainders are kept as it goes (each total is divided by 101), and the last one is 87. The score is 45 + 87 x 55 / 100 = 92.85, which rounds to 93%.
The messages
| Score | Message | Bar color |
|---|---|---|
| 90% to 100% | A perfect match on paper! | Green |
| 75% to 89% | A very strong match. | Green |
| 60% to 74% | A good match with room to grow. | Amber |
| 45% to 59% | A sweet start. Every couple writes its own story. | Pink |
- Score: 90% to 100%
Message: A perfect match on paper!
Bar color: Green - Score: 75% to 89%
Message: A very strong match.
Bar color: Green - Score: 60% to 74%
Message: A good match with room to grow.
Bar color: Amber - Score: 45% to 59%
Message: A sweet start. Every couple writes its own story.
Bar color: Pink
Chart: the range of the score
The bar changes color as the score goes up. Each block is 1.4 percentage points, starting at 45%.
45% 100% ████████████████████████████████████████ ■ 45-59 pink ■ 60-74 amber ■ 75-100 green
Chart: how the scores are shared
The calculator has 101 possible numbers, from 0 to 100, and they are spread evenly over the four messages. Each block is about 0.7 numbers out of 101.
45-59 ████████████████████████████████████████ 27 of 101 60-74 ████████████████████████████████████████ 27 of 101 75-89 ████████████████████████████████████████ 27 of 101 90-100 ██████████████████████████████ 20 of 101
So a bit more than one pair in five gets a score of 90% or more, and about a quarter get each of the other bands.
Why the names are put in order
If the names were joined in the order you type them, "Alex + Sam" and "Sam + Alex" would give different scores, which is odd for a game about two people. Putting them in alphabetical order first gives one score for the couple.
Tips
- Try full names, nicknames or different spellings. Every letter changes the result.
- Capital letters and spaces do not matter. Other signs, such as a hyphen or an accent, do count as letters.
- Do not take it seriously. A low score does not mean a bad match, and a high one does not mean a good one.
What this calculator does not include
- Birth dates, star signs or any other facts about the people.
- Any test of compatibility from psychology. Real relationships depend on trust, respect, honest talk and shared values.
This tool is for entertainment only. It does not predict how well two people will get on.