The name Bob in Hebrew letters is בוב. Below: how its number adds up, which page of the Torah it falls on and what verse stands there. Everything is computed, nothing is guessed.
בוב
In short
Your name in Hebrew letters is בוב. English short form of Robert, a Germanic name made of “fame” and “bright”. Known bearers include Bob Dylan and Bob Marley. In Hebrew it is written by sound. Adding up the numbers of its letters gives 10 — the same as the Torah word בדד, “alone”. That number points to Torah page 10 of 354 — in the portion Noach. What that portion is about: The flood and the ark; the rainbow as a sign of the covenant; the tower of Babel; ten generations from Noah to Abraham. The verse that begins with the first letter of your name and ends with the last is Genesis 3:19. Each of these steps is laid out below with its sources. Every figure can be checked by hand.
You wrote “Bob” — this exact spelling is what was calculated: בוב. A name from the Tanakh — its Tanakh spelling is used. If your name is spelled differently, correct the Hebrew spelling and the report is recomputed.
Adding up the letters of the name בוב gives 10.
10
The number 10 is the Torah word בדד — «alone» (Numbers 23:9).
And of every living thing of all flesh, two of every sort shalt thou bring into the ark, to keep them alive with thee; they shall be male and female.
This is from the portion Noach. What it is about: The flood and the ark; the rainbow as a sign of the covenant; the tower of Babel; ten generations from Noah to Abraham.
The same number, 10, is given by these Tanakh names:
Zeev זאב
Other ways of counting
The tradition counts the same name in several ways. The main one is above: each letter is its number. The other eight are old and checkable too; each gives its own number, and many of them have a Torah word with the same number.
with finals, reduced and ordinal — 10. A Torah word with the same number is בדד — “alone” (Numbers 23:9).
Cumulative: a letter plus all letters before it (mispar kidmi) — 27. A Torah word with the same number is בכה — “to weep” (Genesis 21:16).
Squares of the letter values (mispar perati) — 44. A Torah word with the same number is ילד — “to bear, give birth” (Genesis 3:16).
Building: the sum grows with each letter (mispar bone’eh) — 20. A Torah word with the same number is היה — “to be, become” (Genesis 1:2).
The letters that come out are שפש — not a word that stands in the Pentateuch. Atbash: letters mirrored, alef for tav, bet for shin, and the number of the resulting word — 680. A Torah word with the same number is פתר — “to interpret” (Genesis 40:8).
Filling: the names of the letters are counted — alef, bet, gimel… (milui) — 836. A Torah word with the same number is נפשות — “persons, souls” (Genesis 36:6).
The number 10 appears in the classical books 39 times across 20 works. The earliest mention is ספר חסידים (~1200).
Every letter of the name explained, the words and namesakes with references, the Hebrew date, the letter and tribe of the month, day 861 of your life (±1), the psalm by age, the attestations from the classical books — a PDF sent to your email.
The number of the day, every morning
Every date has a number too. Once a year it will match the number of your name — 10. The channel posts one number a day, one verse and the Torah page it lands on. Nothing after it, no mailing list.
Hebrew is written from right to left. בוב has 3 letters: ב Bet, ו Vav, ב Bet. The first letter is Bet, the last is Bet.
For an engraving, a sign or a tattoo, show the spelling to someone who reads Hebrew: transliterating a name is a choice, not the only option.
The name בוב does not stand as a word in the Pentateuch — as with most names, including many Tanakh names from the later books.
The verse of your name
There is a custom: at the end of the prayer one says a Torah verse that begins with the first letter of one's name and ends with its last. For בוב these are ב and ב. The Pentateuch has 4 such verses. The first of them is Genesis 3:19:
בזעת אפיך תאכל לחם עד שובך אל האדמה כי ממנה לקחת כי עפר אתה ואל עפר תשוב
This is from the portion Bereshit. What it is about: Creation in six days and the Sabbath; Adam and Eve in the garden; Cain and Abel; ten generations to Noah.
«And of every living thing of all flesh, two of every sort shalt thou bring into the ark, to keep them alive with thee; they shall be male and female.»
Each Hebrew letter has a number; a word's number is their sum (alef 1 … tav 400). The page is the remainder modulo 354: the Torah divided into 354 pages of 861 letters, as the lunar year has 354 days. Everything can be checked by hand.
