Birth Name
Use the full name given at birth, including the complete middle name if there is one. This is usually the name as it exactly appears on the birth certificate. If the name on the birth certificate was never used or was changed shortly after birth, for whatever reason, the name on the birth certificate is still the correct name to use. The only exceptions: (1) if a clerical error has occurred, use the actual name given at birth, or (2) if you were adopted within 12 months of birth, use the full adopted name instead.

Name Used Today
The full name most commonly used today must also be entered. If several different names are used, enter the full name most strongly identified with. That's usually the name used with family and close friends. Sometimes, if you have strong career identification, it's the name used in your professional work. Only use the middle name (or initial) if you more strongly identify with it than without it.

Hyphenated Names
If a name is hyphenated, enter the name with the hyphen. The program will internally separate the two names to correctly perform the calculations, but will display the name with the hyphen, just as entered.

Compound Names
If the last name is made of compounds, combine them into one name, placing an underscore character between each compound part. For example:

‘Arthur van der Kalen’ is entered as ‘Arthur van_der_kalen’

The program will now treat the last name as a single name to correctly perform the calculations, but will not display the underscore characters.

If a compound name contains either a Y or W, then the following are all valid ways to enter the name. This assures that the Y and W are correctly detected as vowels or consonants:

‘George DeWitt’ can be entered as:

‘George DeWitt’ or as,

‘George De_Witt’ or as,

‘GEORGE DE_WITT’ or as,

‘george de_witt’

but not as ‘George Dewitt’ or ‘GEORGE DEWITT’.

Names Ending With Jr., Sr., II, Etc.
If the name contains a Jr. or Sr. or II, III, etc., following the name, then omit it. For example:

‘Henry Ford, Jr.’ is entered as ‘Henry Ford’

Foreign Alphabets
Foreign alphabets that use the English character set are also supported. For example, the Spanish alphabet contains several two character letters (CH, LL, RR and AE). To correctly enter these letters, surround the two characters with a left and right parenthesis, i.e., enter CH as (CH). The parentheses will not be displayed, but the double letters will now be correctly treated as a single letter.

Long Names (more then 4 names long)
Finally, Matthew Goodwin's system of numerology uses a maximum of four names, as described in his Numerology: The Complete Guide, volume one. If a person's complete name contains more than four names, his system uses only the first and last name. We follow this approach. If you enter more than four names, all the names will be displayed, but only the first and last names will be used for the calculations.

If you want to override this method of calculation, then use the underscore character instead of a space character to separate the extra middle names, so effectively there are only four names. For example:

‘William Steven David Matthew Crown’ can be entered as

‘William Steven_David Matthew Crown’