Play FLAMES
Friends, Lovers, Affection, Marriage, Enemies, Siblings. The notebook-margin classic, run for real.
What each letter means
Friends
Solid and easy. Not everything has to turn romantic to matter.
Lovers
The one the acronym is named for. A romantic spark, at least by the letters.
Affection
Warm and close, without the pressure of a bigger label.
Marriage
The letters see a long-haul commitment in this one.
Enemies
Not exactly what you were hoping for. Take it as seriously as the method deserves.
Siblings
More like family than romance, according to the letters.
How it works
Write out both names, then cross out shared letters one pair at a time. Every time a letter shows up in both names, cancel one copy from each side and move on, the same way you'd count votes off a tally sheet. What's left over, added up across both names, is your count.
Take that count and use it to walk around the word FLAMES, crossing out one letter every time the count runs out, then continuing from the next surviving letter and counting again from there. Repeat until a single letter is standing. That's your result: F for Friends, L for Lovers, A for Affection, M for Marriage, E for Enemies, or S for Siblings.
This is the whole method, run exactly as written above, just in code instead of pencil. Nothing here is a hashed score standing in for the real game. Want the same two-names-in-one-number idea but as a plain percentage instead of a category? Try the Love Calculator or the Crush Calculator, both of which use a fixed formula tuned to their own question rather than this letter method.
A game built for margins and study halls
FLAMES needs nothing but a name, a second name, and something to write with, which is most of why it spread the way it did: passed between desks, scribbled during a boring class, replayed with a new name the moment the last round ended. No app, no dice, no rules beyond crossing out letters and counting.
That portability is also why so many people can recite the six letters from memory decades later but couldn't tell you where the game actually came from. It doesn't have a known inventor or a first-documented year the way board games usually do. It just showed up in enough classrooms, in enough countries, that it became one of those things everyone's generation seems to have played once.
Reading your result without overreading it
Landing on Enemies with your best friend or Siblings with your crush is funny precisely because it's obviously wrong, and that's the entire appeal. The method never looked at how you two actually get along; it looked at which letters your names happen to share.
Use a good result as a small excuse to bring someone up in conversation, and shrug off a bad one just as fast. If you're curious what real long-term compatibility signals look like instead of a letter game, the Compatibility Calculator below covers that ground in its own FAQ.
Just for fun. Runs the classic letter-cancellation method on whatever two names you type in. It's a notebook game with a fixed outcome, not a read on how two people actually get along.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is this the actual FLAMES game, or another hashed percentage?
The actual game. The Love and Crush Calculators on this site run a fixed digital formula loosely in the spirit of FLAMES, but this page runs the real letter-cancellation method by hand: cross out shared letters, count what's left, count around the word FLAMES, see what survives.
Does it matter whose name goes first?
No. Cancelling shared letters between two names comes out the same total either way you compare them, and that total is the only thing the rest of the method uses. Type them in whichever order you like.
Will I get the same letter if I run it again?
Yes. The same two names always cancel out to the same leftover count, which always lands on the same letter. Nothing about the method is randomized.
What happens if the two names cancel out completely?
It's rare, but two names that are exact anagrams of each other (the same letters, just rearranged) can cancel to zero leftovers. When that happens, the calculator counts a full lap of the six letters instead of stopping at a leftover count of nothing.
Does the calculator save or send my name anywhere?
No. Everything runs in your browser. The only thing that ever leaves your device is a share link, and only if you generate one, and that link just encodes the two names you typed.
Would a nickname change my result?
Yes, since the method counts exact letters. "Jon" and "Jonathan" cancel out differently against the same second name, so use whichever version you'd actually call them and stick with it.