Love percentage by name: the LOVES method
The percentage comes from a pencil-and-paper method older than the internet. This page explains it completely — anyone with a notebook can reproduce every score this site gives, and the two examples below are worked in full so you can check.
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.
Got your score? Now blend the two names into one. Get your couple name →
The method
1. Merge the names. Write both names together, lower-cased, letters only. Spaces, capitals and punctuation are dropped; accented letters fold to their base letter.
2. Count the five letters. Count how many times L, then O, then V, then E, then S appears in the merged string. That gives a row of five numbers.
3. Fold. Add each number to its right-hand neighbour and keep only the last digit of each sum (7 + 5 = 12 becomes 2). The row shrinks by one number. Repeat until two numbers remain.
4. Read the percentage. The two remaining digits, read as one number, are the score.
Worked example 1: Romeo & Juliet
Merged: romeojuliet. Counting the five letters: L appears once (in Juliet), O twice (both in Romeo), V not at all, E twice (one in each name), S not at all. The starting row is 1 2 0 2 0.
| Step | Row | How |
|---|---|---|
| Count | 1 2 0 2 0 | L=1, O=2, V=0, E=2, S=0 |
| Fold 1 | 3 2 2 2 | 1+2, 2+0, 0+2, 2+0 |
| Fold 2 | 5 4 4 | 3+2, 2+2, 2+2 |
| Fold 3 | 9 8 | 5+4, 4+4 |
| Result | 98% | |
The star-crossed pair top the chart — the game approves of Shakespeare, apparently.
Worked example 2: Ravi & Priya
Merged: ravipriya. None of L, O, E or S appear; V appears once. Starting row: 0 0 1 0 0. Folding: 0 1 1 0 → 1 2 1 → 3 3 — Ravi & Priya score 33%. This is the classic textbook example of the method, and a useful check: any honest LOVES calculator must produce 33% for this pair.
Properties worth knowing
Order does not matter. Merging is commutative — the counts are the same whichever name you type first, so the score is too.
Only five letters matter. A name's other letters are decoration as far as the game is concerned. Two completely different pairs can share a score if their five counts coincide.
It is deterministic. There is no random draw and no hidden weighting. If a site gives you a different score for the same two names on a second visit, it is not using this method — or it is making the number up.
Questions
Some sites insert the word "loves" between the names. Is that the same method?
It is a common variant: counting the five letters in "name1 loves name2" instead of in the merged names. It gives different scores. This site uses the plain merged-names version described above, so the examples here can be checked exactly.
Why does the fold keep only the last digit?
So the game stays playable on paper: rows stay single-digit and short. It is a rule of the game, not a statistical technique.
Does a high percentage mean anything?
It means the two names contain a favourable arrangement of five particular letters. That is the complete list of what it means.