How the FLAMES game works, step by step
The rules of FLAMES as most people learned them, a worked example, the table of every count from 1 to 30, and why other FLAMES sites disagree.
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In short
- Strike the letters two names share one for one, count what is left, then count that many places round F-L-A-M-E-S, striking where each count ends, until one letter remains.
- The answer depends only on how many letters are left. Two pairs of names with the same count always get the same word.
- Between 2 and 20 letters left, no count ends on S for Siblings. Love comes up for only two of those counts, 10 and 19.
- Sites disagree because of three rule changes, each common in playgrounds — striking every copy of a shared letter, restarting each count at F, and adding surnames.
- It is a counting-out game, the same family as choosing who is "it". It predicts nothing about two people.
FLAMES is the name game passed round school notebooks across India and much of Asia: two names go in, one word comes out — Friends, Love, Affection, Marriage, Enemies or Siblings. Played on paper it takes a minute and a lot of crossing out, and two people playing the same pair often get different answers. This page explains the version the calculator plays, shows every step so you can check it against your own, and explains where the other answers come from.
What the six letters stand for
Each letter of FLAMES is one possible relationship:
| Letter | English | Hindi |
|---|---|---|
| F | Friends | दोस्त |
| L | Love | प्यार |
| A | Affection | लगाव |
| M | Marriage | शादी |
| E | Enemies | दुश्मन |
| S | Siblings | भाई-बहन |
Some people learned A as Adore or Admirer, and S as Sister. The words change from school to school; the counting does not, so the letter you end on is the same whatever you call it.
The rules, step by step
The game has three steps, and only the first one involves the names.
Step 1: strike the shared letters, one for one. Write both names. For every letter that appears in both, cross it out once in each name. If a letter appears twice in one name and once in the other, only one pair is struck and the second copy stays. Spaces, dots and capital letters do not count.
Step 2: count what is left. Add up the letters left in both names. Call it the count.
Step 3: count round FLAMES. Starting at F, count that many letters round the word, going back to F after S. Cross out the letter where the count ends. Start the next count on the letter after the one you crossed out, and keep going round, skipping crossed-out letters, until one letter is left. That letter is the answer.
Step 3 always takes exactly five rounds, because each round removes one of the six letters.
A worked example: Rahul and Priya
Rahul is r-a-h-u-l and Priya is p-r-i-y-a. They share r and a, so one r and one a are crossed out of each name. That leaves h, u, l from Rahul and p, i, y from Priya: 6 letters.
Now count 6 round FLAMES:
| Round | Letters in play | Count starts at | Count of 6 ends on |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | F L A M E S | F | S |
| 2 | F L A M E | F | F |
| 3 | L A M E | L | A |
| 4 | L M E | M | L |
| 5 | M E | M | E |
In round 2 the count starts on F because S was the last letter, so the count wraps back to the start. In round 3 it starts on L, the letter after the F that was just struck. After five rounds M is left, so Rahul and Priya get Marriage. The calculator above shows this same table for any pair you enter.
Every count from 1 to 30
Because the answer depends only on the count, the whole game fits in one table. Find the number of letters left after Step 1 and read across:
| Letters left | Answer | Letters left | Answer | Letters left | Answer |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Siblings | 11 | Marriage | 21 | Friends |
| 2 | Enemies | 12 | Affection | 22 | Enemies |
| 3 | Friends | 13 | Affection | 23 | Friends |
| 4 | Enemies | 14 | Friends | 24 | Enemies |
| 5 | Friends | 15 | Marriage | 25 | Enemies |
| 6 | Marriage | 16 | Friends | 26 | Marriage |
| 7 | Enemies | 17 | Affection | 27 | Siblings |
| 8 | Affection | 18 | Friends | 28 | Affection |
| 9 | Enemies | 19 | Love | 29 | Siblings |
| 10 | Love | 20 | Enemies | 30 | Affection |
A few things stand out once it is laid out like this.
- Siblings almost never comes up for real names. Only 1, 27 and 29 end on S in this range. One letter left means two names that are nearly the same; 27 means two long full names with very little in common.
- Love is rare too. Of the counts from 2 to 20, which is where most pairs of first names land, only 10 and 19 give Love. Enemies and Friends get five counts each in that range, Affection four and Marriage three.
- Over a long enough range it evens out. The answer for a count of 61 is the same as for 1, 62 the same as for 2, and so on: the circle shrinks from 6 letters to 2, and 60 is the smallest number that 6, 5, 4, 3 and 2 all divide. Across any 60 counts in a row, each of the six answers comes up exactly 10 times.
Why other FLAMES sites give a different answer
If you played on paper and got something else, or another website disagrees with this one, one of three rule changes is usually the reason. Each is common, and none of them is wrong — they are just different games.
Striking every copy of a shared letter. Some people cross out every a once a appears in both names, not one a for one a. Priyanka and Arjun share r, a and n. Struck one for one, Priyanka keeps its second a, leaving p, i, y, k, a and j, u: 7 letters, which is Enemies. Striking every a leaves p, i, y, k and j, u: 6 letters, which is Marriage.
Restarting every count at F. In this version you start each round from F, or from the first letter still standing, rather than from the letter after the one just struck. With a count of 6 the strikes become S, F, A, E, M and the answer is Love, not Marriage — so Rahul and Priya come out differently under this rule.
Full names instead of first names. Every letter added changes the count. Rahul Sharma and Priya share the same r and a as before, but Sharma adds six letters, so 12 are left and the answer becomes Affection. Rahul Sharma and Priya Verma leave 11, which is Marriage again.
The calculator plays the most widespread version: one for one, counting on from the letter after the strike, with whatever names you type. If you learned a different version, you can still use it to check your own working — the table of rounds shows exactly where each count lands.
What happens when every letter is struck
If both names use exactly the same letters — Anna and Nana, or a name typed twice — Step 1 crosses out everything and the count is 0. There is nothing to count round FLAMES, so the game has no answer. On paper people usually add a surname and play again, and that is what the calculator suggests. A count of 1, as with Anna and Ann, is fine: each round strikes the letter it starts on, F, then L, A, M and E, and S is left.
A counting-out game, not a prediction
Step 3 is a counting-out game, the same mechanism as the rhymes children use to decide who is "it": stand in a circle, count round, and whoever the count lands on is out. Mathematicians know the general version as the Josephus problem, and it has a tidy property that shows up in the table above — for a fixed number of places in the circle, the survivor depends only on the count, not on who is standing where.
That is exactly why FLAMES cannot mean anything. Two people's names decide only one number, the count of letters left over, and the answer follows from that number alone. Swap either name for any other name with the same count and the result is identical. Spelling is not personality, and nothing about how well two people get on is hidden in how many letters their names do not share.
Relationship research looks at quite different things: how a couple handles disagreement, whether each responds when the other reaches out, and whether they agree about money, children and how to spend their time. Our Love Calculator explains that side in more detail. FLAMES is best enjoyed for what it is — a quick game to play with friends, with a result to laugh about and then forget.
How the calculator handles names
- Letters only. Spaces, dots, hyphens and digits are ignored, and capitals count the same as small letters, so "A.P.J. Abdul Kalam" and "apj abdul kalam" give the same result.
- Names in other scripts. Letters in Devanagari and other scripts are counted too. A vowel sign such as the ा in राम stays with the letter it is written on, so राम counts as two letters, as it would on paper.
- Order does not matter. Shared letters are struck in pairs, one from each name, so the same number is left whichever name you type first.
- Nothing is stored. The names are worked out in your browser and are not sent anywhere.
If you want another number game for two names, the Numerology Calculator turns names into digits instead, and the Age Difference Calculator works out the real gap between two birthdays.