The love calculator, with its working shown
Type two names and get two answers from the two oldest name games in the schoolyard: a LOVES percentage and a FLAMES verdict. Every step of the counting is displayed — because the whole trick is the counting, and we would rather show it than dress it up.
Try a famous pair:
LOVES percentage
How it works: merge both names, count the letters L, O, V, E and S, then keep adding neighbouring numbers (last digit only) until two digits remain. Same names, same score — in either order.
FLAMES result
How it works: letters the two names share are crossed out in pairs. The letters left over set the count for eliminating F-L-A-M-E-S one by one, counting on from the next letter each round, until one letter survives.
Got your score? Now blend the two names into one. Get your couple name →
For fun only. Both games look at nothing but the letters in two names. They cannot measure feelings, predict a relationship, or say anything true about two actual people — and this page will not pretend otherwise.
What you get
A LOVES percentage. Merge the two names, count how many times the letters L, O, V, E and S appear, then add neighbouring numbers together — keeping only the last digit each time — until two digits remain. Those digits are the score. The full method, with a worked example you can check on paper, is on the love percentage by name page.
A FLAMES verdict. Cross out the letters the two names share, count what survives, and count around F-L-A-M-E-S eliminating one letter at a time. The survivor names the game's verdict: Friends, Love, Affection, Marriage, Enemy or Siblings. The dedicated FLAMES calculator shows the elimination round by round.
The same answer every time. Neither game uses randomness. Swap the names around and the score does not change — both methods are symmetric by construction, which is exactly why a shared link always shows your friends the identical result.
Why the maths is on display
Most love calculators ask you to trust a black box, and some claim their number comes from intelligent analysis. This one comes from counting letters, and says so. A score you can reproduce with a pencil is more honest — and, frankly, more fun to argue about. If you want to see what the numbers mean in the game's own terms, the compatibility chart gives each score band its (purely theatrical) reading, and famous couples shows what eight very famous pairs score under these exact rules.
Questions
Is a love calculator accurate?
It is accurate at counting letters, and that is all it has ever measured. There is no scientific instrument behind it: the percentage is a deterministic game result, not a measurement of two people.
Why do both names give the same score in either order?
LOVES counts letters in the merged names, and merging is order-independent. FLAMES cancels shared letters, which is also symmetric. So Romeo & Juliet and Juliet & Romeo are the same game.
Do you store the names I type?
No. The games run entirely in your browser; nothing is sent to or kept on a server. The share link keeps the names in the link itself (after the #), which your browser never sends to us.
What if both names are made of the same letters?
Then FLAMES has nothing left to count with and says so, while LOVES still produces a percentage from its five letters. Try an anagram pair and see.