SEIMEI HANDAN
What is Seimei Handan (Japanese Name Divination)?
Seimei Handan is a system of name analysis that classifies the stroke counts of the Chinese characters making up a person’s name into five categories—tenkaku, jinkaku, chikaku, gaikaku, and sōkaku—and reads tendencies in career, money, and romantic fortune from the auspiciousness of each. Built on traditions developed in Japan and China, it was established as a modern system in Japan between the Taisho and Showa eras.
Overview
- System
- Form Reading (reads from the stroke counts of the characters in a name)
- Origin
- Japan and China (established as a five-category system in modern Japan)
- What You Need
- Full name (written in Chinese characters)
- Best For
- Life direction, work, money, and romance
- Time Frame
- Life as a whole
Origins & History
The idea of reading fortune from the stroke count of the characters in a name has long been found in both Japan and China, though the criteria used varied considerably from school to school. The widely known "five-category method" (judging auspiciousness from five stroke-count figures—tenkaku, jinkaku, chikaku, gaikaku, and sōkaku) was systematized by the modern Japanese diviner Kumasaki Ken’ō.
On January 1, 1929 (Showa 4), Kumasaki formally announced his system as the "Kumasaki-style name studies" in a New Year supplement to the magazine Shufu no Tomo, and popularized it widely through his book Seimei no Shinpi ("The Mystery of Names," Jitsugyo no Nihon Sha), published that June. This modern system became the mainstream form of Seimei Handan and has since become firmly established in Japan’s naming culture.
How It Works
- 01Prepare the full name to be analyzed, written in Chinese characters.
- 02Count the stroke number of each character in the surname and given name (taking care with counting conventions that differ by dictionary, such as traditional-form stroke counts).
- 03Classify the stroke counts into the five categories: tenkaku, jinkaku, chikaku, gaikaku, and sōkaku.
- 04Combine the auspicious or inauspicious meanings assigned to the stroke count of each category to read tendencies in fortune.
What It Reveals
Seimei Handan is well suited to reading overall life tendencies—such as career, money, and romantic fortune—from the combination of stroke counts in a name. At the same time, the method of counting strokes and the criteria for auspiciousness differ between schools, and it functions as one piece of reference information for naming rather than a guarantee that changing a name will reliably change one’s destiny.
Related Methods
References
- 五聖閣: 熊﨑式姓名学®の考案者 熊﨑健翁とは (https://goseikaku.com/coramu/kumasakisikiseimeigaku/kumasakikenou.html)