Japan
Seimei Handan — Japanese Name Reading
Count the strokes of a name and you count its luck: Japan's enduring art of name divination.
Seimei handan judges a name by the stroke counts of its characters, split into five positions — heaven, person, earth, outer and total luck. Each number carries a fortune, auspicious or ill-starred.
Japanese parents still consult name-reading tables before registering a baby, and adults sometimes adopt alternate characters to improve their luck. A single stroke, the masters say, can tilt a life.