How well do your
names match?

The number comes from the spelling

The score on this page is not worked out from either person. Its only ingredient is the two strings you typed, and everything after that is fixed arithmetic. Both names are lowercased, trimmed at each end, and any run of spaces inside is collapsed to one. The two are then sorted into a fixed order and joined with a vertical bar into a single string.

That string is folded character by character into a 32-bit integer — the code calls the step FNV-1a. The integer seeds a small random-number generator, and the first value drawn out sets the score: forty, plus the whole part of a fraction between zero and one multiplied by sixty. So the result always lands between 40 and 99.

Same two names, same answer — in either order

Because the pair is sorted before it is hashed, swapping the first box and the second changes nothing. Capitals and stray spaces are removed beforehand, so they change nothing either. The seed is not the clock and not the date — it is that one string and nothing else, which is why the same two names give the same score and land on the same slot of every list tomorrow, or on somebody else's device. What you read is that slot printed in whichever of the three languages the page is set to, so switching language changes the wording, never the choice.

The other side of that is worth saying too. One different character changes what gets folded in, and the seed becomes an unrelated number. A nickname and a full name, or the same name written in another script, are simply different inputs rather than a right one and a wrong one. Names are also cut at forty characters, so anything past the fortieth is not part of the ingredient.

Where the sentences come from

The shared strength, the thing to mind and the one-word chemistry are not written on the spot. They are drawn from lists written in advance in all three languages, by the same generator that set the score, and both the count and the order are fixed in the code: after the score come exactly three draws — strength, then watch point, then keyword.

The headline under the score is not drawn at all. It follows from which band the score fell into, and so do the band's name, the paragraph beneath the headline, and the two boxes at the foot of the card — 'Make it a conversation' and 'How this was made'. There are four bands, so each of those is one of four texts written in advance. Two different pairs of names that land in the same band read identically there.

There are four bands — 90 and up, 75 and up, 60 and up, and everything below. Since the score covers sixty numbers from 40 to 99, the bands are ten, fifteen, fifteen and twenty numbers wide, which makes the bottom band, 40 to 59, the widest of the four.

The lists hold eight strengths, eight things to mind and ten keywords. If a line sounds like the two of you, that is one of eight coming up — not a sentence chosen after looking at anybody.

This is a hash, not a chart

The floor of 40 is a number we chose. The sum is forty plus the whole part of a fraction times sixty: the spread is sixty numbers wide either way, and the forty is simply added in front. Take it away and the same expression returns 0 to 59. We decided not to hand anyone a 39. That is a choice rather than a consequence, and it is written here rather than buried. It also settles what the number is worth: a scale with its bottom lifted is not a measurement.

The card your result sits in carries a label at the top. There are three of them here — calculated, Korean tradition, just for fun — and the one this page is assigned is just for fun. The rule that is written down governs the top label: open the implementation, and if it does not read the chart, it is not called calculated. This page never asks for a birth date or a birth time, so it knows nothing beyond the spelling of two names.

So please do not read the number as a verdict on a relationship. It is something to read together and argue with — the parts that fit, the parts that miss. The same short disclaimer is printed under every result for the same reason. The readings that are worked out from a chart live on the pages that ask for a birth date and time, and their rules are linked below.