this post was submitted on 09 Apr 2025
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I have a few different versions of synesthesia.
The most prominent one is that is see words and letters in color. If you tell me your name I can more or less paint your name like a weird color code. Whenever it is brought up it's almost like a fun little party trick where people ask me what color their names are and I tell them.
Spoiler alert, though: if your name has A or S in it, it will most likely have red in the mix. M and N are differnet variations of green. Some letters are dominant and others are submissive so depending on the word they either pain other letters a specific color or take color from dominant letters. E is a submissive letter. Tends to be a pale yellow, but will change color depending on the letters it is put together with. D is a weird dominant letter that changes color all the time. Either black or a deep purple. Completely depends on the word.
Numbers have colors too.
0 - white
1 - black
2 - pale yellow
3 - sky blue
4 - red
5 - dark brown
6 - black
7 - yellow
8 - dark purple
9 - orange
Random names and their colors:
Jack = black and red, white and black again.
Stephanie = red, yellow, green and yellowish white
Peter = gold and black
Mary = forest green, red, black and orangy yellow
Robert = black, white black
Lily = white, silver, yellow like sunshine
William = black, white, red, forest green
Karen = black, red, black, a sprinkle of yellow and spring green.
Russell = black, golden yellow, red, yellow
Evelyn = sunshine yellow, white and spring green.
Etc etc
To me, pretty names are not just pretty if they sound good, they also have to have beautiful and unique color combinations. Most names tend to have red and green color combos for me so whenever yellow, blue, purple or pink appear in a name I really like it. In my country there's a man's name Åge which isn't the prettiest sounding name, but to me it is so friggin beautiful because it's one of the rarest color combinations I have in my head: dusty blue, morning pink, white, misty overlay and a bit of golden brown. The letter Å is the prettiest letter to me as it is this rare double color of blue and pink and it is a dominant letter so whenever it appears in a name or a word, it is like a breath of fresh air among all the greens and blacks and reds.
Does the coloring of numbers help or hinder your understanding of maths?
In my case it does nothing for my understanding of math. I am pretty bad at math so my synesthesia would only benefit me with numbers if I was good at calculating things in my head. Then I would probably see the color of the number before getting the facit.
With words it can be helpful with spellings. If I or someone else misspell a word I see it immediately because the color is wrong. This is also how I remember people's names. I tend to ask people how their names are spelled so I see their colors correctly. To me, that's part of knowing someone. If I haven't seen someone's name written in front of me, they won't have a color and I then tend to forget their names, which is super awkward sometimes.
With some words that can be spelled in different ways, I prefer some spellings over others because the color is prettier or more appropriate.
For example with gray and grey I prefer grey because the color of that word is light grey and a very light yellow. Gray is a dark, denatured brown and red. I don't like it as much.
But yeah, when it comes to math, it does almost nothing for me because I'm not mathematically gifted at all.
Really interesting. I allways wonder whether some mathematical geniuses were able to see way more then just numbers and I could imagine color might be a useful tool when you get into the weird stuff. Thank you for sharing.. That was really interesting.
I am sure there are some of those out there! I saw a guy online who had color and shape based synesthesia with letters and numbers and he had built is own alphabet from that and actively used it for note-taking. He seemed exceptionally intelligent and his notes were a complete trip to look at. Some people called him schizophrenic in the comments because they didn't understand it, but it was very clear to see that there was a logic and a system to his alphabet and his notes that wouldn't have been there if he had schizophrenia. People fear what they don't understand xD
I wish I could remember where I saw that. It was awhile ago. It was so cool.
From what I have been able to tell, many people with synesthesia are either artists or scientists. I'm sure there are also bankers and accountants with this affliction out there, but I guess you don't hear about them as much as they don't tend to become famous.