The name Sheldon in Hebrew letters is שלדון. 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.
שלדון
In short
Your name in Hebrew letters is שלדון. Adding up the numbers of its letters gives 390 — the same as the Torah word שמן, “oil”. That number points to Torah page 36 of 354 — in the portion Chayei Sarah. What that portion is about: Sarah's death and the purchase of the cave of Machpelah; the servant seeks a wife for Isaac; Rebecca at the well; Abraham's death. The verse that begins with the first letter of your name and ends with the last is Genesis 42:32. Each of these steps is laid out below with its sources. Every figure can be checked by hand.
You wrote “Sheldon” — this exact spelling is what was calculated: שלדון. 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 שלדון gives 390.
390
The number 390 is the Torah word שמן — «oil» (Genesis 28:18).
So let it come to pass, that the damsel to whom I shall say: Let down thy pitcher, I pray thee, that I may drink; and she shall say: Drink, and I will give thy camels drink also; let the same be she that Thou hast appointed for Thy servant, even for Isaac; and thereby shall I know that Thou hast shown kindness unto my master.'
This is from the portion Chayei Sarah. What it is about: Sarah's death and the purchase of the cave of Machpelah; the servant seeks a wife for Isaac; Rebecca at the well; Abraham's death.
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.
Final letters as 500–900 (mispar gadol) — 1040.
Reduced, each letter to one digit (mispar katan) — 21. A Torah word with the same number is אך — “only, surely” (Genesis 7:23).
Ordinal: alef 1, bet 2 … tav 22 (mispar siduri) — 57. A Torah word with the same number is מזבח — “altar” (Genesis 8:20).
Cumulative: a letter plus all letters before it (mispar kidmi) — 1426.
Squares of the letter values (mispar perati) — 93452.
Building: the sum grows with each letter (mispar bone’eh) — 1694.
The letters that come out are בכקפט — not a word that stands in the Pentateuch. Atbash: letters mirrored, alef for tav, bet for shin, and the number of the resulting word — 211. A Torah word with the same number is ירא — “to fear” (Genesis 3:10).
Filling: the names of the letters are counted — alef, bet, gimel… (milui) — 986.
The number 390 appears in the classical books 32 times across 7 works. The earliest mention is ספר הפליאה (~1390).
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 — 390. 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. שלדון has 5 letters: ש Shin, ל Lamed, ד Dalet, ו Vav, ן final Nun. The first letter is Shin, the last is final Nun.
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 שלדון 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 שלדון these are ש and נ. The Pentateuch has 4 such verses. The first of them is Genesis 42:32:
שנים עשר אנחנו אחים בני אבינו האחד איננו והקטן היום את אבינו בארץ כנען
This is from the portion Miketz. What it is about: Pharaoh's dreams of seven cows and seven ears; Joseph rules Egypt; the brothers come for grain; the cup in Benjamin's sack.
«So let it come to pass, that the damsel to whom I shall say: Let down thy pitcher, I pray thee, that I may drink; and she shall say: Drink, and I will give thy camels drink also; let the same be she that Thou hast appointed for Thy servant, even for Isaac; and thereby shall I know that Thou hast shown kindness unto my master.'»
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.
