In Taiwan fortune telling can be broadly divided into three main schools: Ziping School, Ziwei School and Jianghu School, each with its own distinctive approach to the subject of choosing a name. However, most fortunetellers maintain that the influence of a name accounts for only 5-10% on an individual's fortune throughout life.

The parents of children born from the 1950s to the 1970s were almost certain to count the number of strokes that made up each Chinese character before choosing a name. At the same time, the simplicity of "Kumazaki naming," which came from Japanese fortune telling, made it a popular method with relatively uneducated fortunetellers. In addition, it has long been included in the Chinese Almanac and can therefore be said to have had a profound influence on the culture of naming children in Taiwan. In recent years however, a new generation of Taiwanese fortunetellers has tended to use this over simplistic approach as only a reference, preferring instead the yin-yang and five elements theories of ziwei, sizhu and Chinese zodiacs. This in turn has given rise to the development of more complicated methods of choosing names, making it even more important that parent's select a "good name."

Fortuneteller Kuo Chien-hung says that names can be used only to tell the future, not to change it. "People are given names as a result of all kinds of predestined relationships," he says. "Rather than waste time arguing about this 5% difference, it makes more sense to try and understand the ups and downs, and good and bad fortune in one's life, and thereby actively seek out ways to maximize the good and minimize the bad."

Emphasizing the extent to which names are believed to influence an individual's good fortune, Taiwan has in recent years seen an increase in interest in "Cangjie naming methods," which have sought to develop a scientific foundation to back up prognostications. Mr. Su Ting-feng, a student of this discipline, believes in the importance of choosing the right name and offers up the research of Japanese alternative-medicine practitioner Chiang Pen-shen as evidence.

In his book The Secrets of Life: Water Knows, Chiang suggests that water can respond to written texts, and can hear music or calls, and in response, when frozen, will form different crystalline structures. Well-intentioned words and refined music cause the crystals to form a hexagonal arrangement of beautiful symmetry. Bad words and sad tunes distort the crystals, creating shapes that are wildly fragmented: "The human body is 70% water, and names are like labels with the ability to influence both the good fortune and character of an individual," Su Ting-feng states.

Lan Ming-ho has studied different schools of fortune telling and believes it is difficult to quantify how much a name affects a person's life or whether a name change will deliver sudden changes in one's life: "Generally speaking it is believed a new name has to be spoken over one thousand times before it starts to serve its purpose." He suggests that if a person is frequently ill or unfortunate in life, then using fengshui to change where they live or work may produce quicker results.

"Some people may feel that geomancy is nothing more than superstition, but it is in fact very scientific," Lan says. For example geomancy says beds should not directly face windows or doors otherwise those sleeping in them will fall sick. Science has since proved that that doors and windows are ventilation points and that sleeping close to them can leave people susceptible to illness.

However, there are limits to soothsaying. Based on his decades of experience as a fortuneteller, Lan Ming-ho reveals there are two types of people for whom it is extremely difficult to give an accurate reading. One is people who devote themselves to goodness or charity, such as monks and others, in other words, those who have transcended the confines of the human world for greater things. The other is evil people or those with malice in their hearts. However good their fortunes on paper, sooner or later the law will catch up to them, and they will have to pay their dues.

Finally, Lan offers some good advice: "One can believe in fortune telling, but it is important to be aware that ultimately the way life turns out is dependent on the effort you put into it."