Greek Gematria Calculator — Isopsephy

What isopsephy is

Isopsephy is the Greek practice of adding the numerical values of a word’s letters. It works because Greek letters were numbers: from the Hellenistic period, Greeks wrote 1–9 with α–θ, 10–90 with ι–ϟ and 100–900 with ρ–ϡ^{[1] Source: Greek numerals}.

The word means “equal pebbles” — ψῆφοι were the counters used for reckoning and voting — and two words with the same total were called isopsephic. The practice is older than the Hebrew term gematria, which itself is usually derived from Greek geometria. Calling it “Greek gematria” is a modern convenience; this page uses both names so that either search finds it.

The 27 numeral letters

Sigma, accents and archaic letters

• Final sigma ς and the lunate form ϲ are sigma and count 200. Upper-case letters equal their lower-case forms.
• Accents, breathings and iota subscript are stripped before counting, so polytonic (Ἰησοῦς) and monotonic or unaccented spellings (Ιησους) agree. This matches ancient practice: inscriptions carried no accents.
• Stigma ϛ, koppa ϟ and sampi ϡ are counted only when those characters are actually typed. In particular the common letter pair στ is 200 + 300, never 6 — some calculators conflate the two because stigma began as a στ ligature.
• Spelling matters more than in English. Ancient and modern Greek spell many words differently, and a name may be attested in several forms (Irenaeus’ Λατεινος uses ει where later writers wrote ι). Use the spelling of the text you are studying.

Isopsephy in the ancient world

Unlike English gematria, isopsephy is thoroughly documented in antiquity. Graffiti at Pompeii include the lover’s riddle “I love her whose number is 545”^{[2] Source: Isopsephy}. Suetonius records a Greek verse posted after Nero killed his mother Agrippina: “a new calculation — Nero slew his own mother”, which works because Νέρων and the phrase for matricide both total 1005^{[3] Source: The Lives of the Caesars: Nero, §39}. Poets composed verses whose lines had equal sums, and oracles and magical papyri used letter-totals as a code. The history page sets this beside the Hebrew evidence.

888 and 666

The two most famous isopsephies are Christian. Ἰησοῦς = 888: Ι 10 + η 8 + σ 200 + ο 70 + υ 400 + ς 200. Second-century writers already remark on the three eights, and the number became a symbol of Christ in later tradition. Live values for this and other terms: Ἰησοῦς = 888 · Χριστός = 1480 · θεός = 284 · ἀγάπη = 93 · Νέρων = 1005 · Καῖσαρ = 332.

666 comes from Revelation 13:18, which invites the reader to “calculate the number of the beast, for it is the number of a person”^{[5] Source: Revelation 13:18}. Writing around 180 CE, Irenaeus proposed three Greek names that fit — Λατεινος = 666 · Τειταν = 666 · Ευανθας = 666 — while admitting he could not be sure which was meant, and reported that some copies read 616, which he blamed on scribal error^{[4] Source: Against Heresies, Book V, chapter 30}. The 616 reading survives in Papyrus 115 and has kept scholars busy since; the Hebrew spelling of Nero Caesar, נרון קסר, totals 666, and 616 without the final ן, which is why Nero is the leading modern identification^{[6] Source: Number of the beast}. The 666 page works through the arithmetic in all three alphabets.

Greek and Hebrew compared

The two systems share a structure — units, tens, hundreds — but not their totals: 27 Greek numerals reach 900, while the 22 Hebrew letters stop at 400 unless final forms are extended to 900 in Mispar Gadol. A Greek and a Hebrew word can be compared only if you decide, and state, which Hebrew method you are using. Both are computed at once on the main calculator, and the comparison page sets the tables side by side.