Japan's Lucky Numbers: 7, 8 and the Fear of 4

In Japanese number culture the lucky numbers are 3, 7 and 8, and the two people avoid are 4 and 9. Four is awkward because one of its readings, shi, is the same syllable as 死, death. Nine is awkward because one of its readings, ku, is the same syllable as 苦, suffering. Seven is lucky through Buddhism and through the Seven Lucky Gods. Eight is lucky for a reason that has nothing to do with sound at all: the character 八 opens outward as it descends.

Japanese kept two counting systems, the native one and the one borrowed from Chinese, and the collision between them is what created the taboo and then supplied the way out of it. Four is either yon or shi; nine is either kyū or ku. The Sino-Japanese readings are the dangerous ones, and ordinary speech has settled firmly on the native alternatives. A shop assistant counting stock says yon. Phone numbers are read with kyū. The escape hatch is built into the grammar, which is unusual.

How much of it anyone believes is a separate question. The avoidance is institutional before it is personal, so you meet it in hospital corridors and vehicle registration rules long before you meet it in conversation. Younger speakers will tell you the whole thing is nonsense and then still hand over three notes at a wedding rather than four.

Lucky: 3, 7, 8
Avoided: 4, 9
Where: Japan
Language: Japanese, with Sino-Japanese and native readings
Mechanism: 四 shi ≈ 死 shi
Sourced claims: 4 on this page

The wordplay behind it

What each number sounds like, stands for, or resolves to. This table is the whole explanation in one place.

Number	Written	Read as	Echoes	Meaning
4	四	shi	死 shi	death	Avoided
9	九	ku	苦 ku	suffering, agony	Avoided
7	七	shichi	七福神 Shichifukujin	the Seven Lucky Gods	Lucky
8	八	hachi	末広がり suehirogari	widening towards the end	Lucky
42	四二	shi-ni	死に shini	to death	Avoided
49	四九	shi-ku	死苦 shiku	the agony of dying	Avoided

The lucky numbers: 3, 7, 8

One at a time, with the mechanism and one place it actually shows up.

3 — the odd number that counts

Odd numbers are the auspicious ones in the counting tradition Japan took from China, and three carries it most visibly. Shichi-Go-San, held on 15 November, brings children to a shrine at three, five and seven, ages picked from that arithmetic in an era when surviving them was not assumed. Cash gifts follow the same rule: wedding money goes in an odd count of notes, three or five, because an even number splits cleanly in two and a marriage should not. The nuptial san-san-kudo has each partner take three sips from each of three cups.

7 — Buddhism and the Seven Lucky Gods

Seven arrives through religion rather than wordplay. The Shichifukujin, the Seven Lucky Gods, are a borrowed crew. Only Ebisu is of Japanese origin; Daikokuten and Benzaiten descend from Indian deities by way of Buddhism, and Fukurokuju and Jurōjin come from Chinese Taoism. During the first three days of the new year they are said to pilot the takarabune, the treasure ship, and a picture of it is standard New Year decoration. Buddhist mourning counts in sevens too.

8 — the character that widens

Eight is the one Japanese reason with no pun behind it. Written 八, the character starts narrow at the top and opens outward at the foot, and that shape has a name of its own: 末広がり suehirogari, widening towards the end. A folding fan does the same thing, and suehiro is one of the fan's polite names, which is why fans are given at celebrations and at retirements. The reading hachi carries no echo whatsoever. Eight also stands in for a large indefinite number in older Japanese, as in yaoyorozu no kami, the eight million gods.

The numbers to avoid: 4, 9

Same treatment. Where an avoidance has a documented cost, it is named.

4 — shi, the syllable for death

四 has two readings. Yon is the native Japanese one and is harmless. Shi is the Sino-Japanese one and is exactly the sound of 死, death. The avoidance that follows is mostly institutional: hospitals and hotels leave out room and floor numbers containing four, and the compound 42 reads shi-ni, to death, which is why Japan's transport ministry does not issue 42 as the final digits of an ordinary registration plate. Forty-two is also the daiyakudoshi, the great calamity year, for men.

9 — ku, the syllable for pain

Nine leads the same double life. Kyū is neutral; ku is the Sino-Japanese reading and matches 苦, suffering. Combs make a poor present because kushi can be heard as ku and shi together, pain and death, and 49 reads shi-ku, the agony of dying, so it goes unissued on plates alongside 42. The taboo is much softer than four's, and it is not even consistent. The wedding rite san-san-kudo is literally three-three-nine times, and nine there means nothing worse than completeness.

Where you actually meet it

The clearest place to see it is a hospital. Ward and room numbers skip four, the fourth floor is often missing from the lift panel outright, and some buildings drop nine as well. Hotels do the same with guest rooms. None of this is required by any law, and no ministry has published a rule on floor numbering. It is a design decision taken by whoever ordered the lift buttons, repeated so often that the gap now looks ordinary to everyone riding past it.

Cars are the one place where the rule exists in writing. Japan's transport ministry withholds 42 and 49 from the final two digits of ordinary passenger plates, and when a motoring magazine asked why, officials replied that the regulation states the exclusions without explaining them. A driver who wants 42 can still request it through the desired-number system. Plates issued to United States military personnel in Japan omit 13 instead, the same logic applied to a different culture.

Age is the third place it shows. Yakudoshi marks certain years as hazardous, and the worst of them, the daiyakudoshi, falls at 42 for men and 33 for women. Forty-two reads shi-ni; thirty-three can be read sanzan, which does double duty as troublesome and as difficult childbirth. Temples run yakuyoke purification services for people passing through those years, a trade steady enough that anthropologists were writing it up in the 1950s.

Checkable claims

Each of these is a documented fact rather than a general impression, with the source named.

Japan's Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism does not issue 42 or 49 as the final digits of ordinary passenger-vehicle registration plates, and issues plates to United States military personnel in Japan without 13. The ministry has said the rule lists the exclusions without stating a reason.

Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism vehicle registration rules

Forty-two is the daiyakudoshi, the great calamity year, for Japanese men, and 33 for women. Forty-two can be read shi-ni, to death, and 33 as sanzan, troublesome or a difficult birth.

Edward Norbeck, Southwestern Journal of Anthropology, 1955

Shichi-Go-San is held on 15 November for girls aged three and seven and boys aged five, ages drawn from the tradition that odd numbers are auspicious. The custom started among Heian court nobility and had reached ordinary families by the Meiji period.

Shichi-Go-San, observed annually on 15 November

Japanese Buddhist mourning is counted in sevens, with memorial services held every seventh day after a death up to the forty-ninth, shijūkunichi, when the soul is held to have moved on.

Japanese Buddhist funeral practice, shijūkunichi

What it changes

None of it changes anything. A room numbered 4 is no more dangerous than the one next door, a man turning forty-two is in no more danger than he was at forty-one, and a fan-shaped character has never made anyone richer. What Japan has that most places lack is a spare set of readings, a way to say the number without saying the word. That is a linguistic accident people have made courteous use of for centuries. Genuinely interesting, and no basis for a bet.

That is the line this site holds everywhere: a tradition is worth knowing, and no number has ever moved a probability. If you want a set of numbers to play with anyway, the daily generator makes one from your birth date and tells you exactly how.

Japanese lucky numbers — frequently asked

Because one of its readings, shi, is the same syllable as 死, death. The other reading, yon, is native Japanese and carries nothing, which is why people count out loud with yon.

No. Nine is avoided in some settings because the reading ku matches 苦, suffering, but the taboo is far weaker. The wedding rite san-san-kudo is named for nine sips and nobody objects to it.

Three, seven and eight. Three because odd numbers are treated as auspicious, seven through Buddhism and the Seven Lucky Gods, eight because the character 八 widens as it goes down.

They are not issued as the final two digits of ordinary passenger plates. A driver can still obtain either by applying through the desired-number system, so it is a default rather than a ban.

Partly. Four is unlucky in both, on the same kind of homophone. But Japan's nine is unlucky where China's nine is lucky, and Japan's eight is lucky for its shape rather than for sounding like prosper.

The other traditions

Same questions, different language and different answers.

ChineseLucky 6 8 9 · avoid 4 GermanLucky 3 4 7 · avoid 13 IndianLucky 108 9 7 · avoid 8 ItalianLucky 3 7 13 · avoid 17 JewishLucky 18 7 13 · avoid 2 KoreanLucky 3 7 · avoid 4 RussianLucky 3 7 · avoid 2 13 ThaiLucky 9 5 · avoid 6 4 WesternLucky 7 3 12 · avoid 13

More ways in

Unlucky numbers13, 4, 17, 666 and 39, and the documented history of each.Open →Chinese zodiacTwelve animals, their lucky numbers, and the lunar new year rule.Open →NumerologyThe western system: one number from a birth date or a name.Open →

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