Name Tattoos

Name tattoos come in all shapes and sizes. They can be part of a colorful chest piece or a simple black line design. Whatever your personal style, name tattoos are a great way to celebrate your children, loved ones or those that you've lost. These pieces can also add a personal touch to another inked design. As you'll soon see, these timeless tattoos can be as unique as the person you are celebrating.

Celebrate your child's name with their first true stamp on this world. This classic name with baby footprints is a meaningful design that never fails to make a parent smile. It can be customized for a mother or father in a multitude of colors and scripts and include your child's actual keepsake from the hospital. Parents can also use this design to commemorate a child taken from this world too soon. It works great for adoptive parents as well.

The EKG line or heart beat tattoo with a name is a symbolic tattoo. This relatively simplistic design can be used to commemorate a lover, child, someone lost, or just someone very close to your heart. You can even use this tattoo to honor a moment in that person's life.

The EKG line can be modified to follow the flow of the name using thicker and thinner lines as well as include an actual printout of an EKG as it flows into their name. As a small unisex tattoo, this name tattoo can pretty much be placed anywhere, but common placement includes the wrist, collar bone, forearm and ankle.

People hold the key to our hearts, or we can use a key to signify our home. Therefore, key tattoos with a name attached to it are typically chock full of significance, like the parent-child bond or the love for your significant other. You can even use this tattoo along with your last name to signify family or home.

The name can be added along the key or become part of the neck of the key. These distinct tattoos can be part of a larger piece with a lock. or standalone, signifying how much that person means to you. You'll see key name tattoos ranging from simple black and white designs placing most of the emphasis on the name to intricate patterns where the name almost becomes hidden within the color, shading and detail, like in this beautiful back design.

Including your family crest or coat-of-arms as part of your name tattoo, or vice versa, can symbolize your heritage and who you are. You will typically see family crest tattoos as part of male surname tattoos, but depending on the design you can give them a feminine spin.

The name in this intricate representation might be included on a scroll or banner along the shield. However, it can also be added along the top or bottom of the crest as well. While any font will work for this multifaceted design, Old English or block lettering compliment the design well.

It's a simple fact of life: sometimes we lose the ones that mean the most to us. There is no better way to remember that person than to have his or her name permanently placed on your skin. A common name tattoo for remembering a loved one is an angel with the person's name woven into it, or above or below it.

The angel works to signify the loved one's place among the stars while his or her name becomes a permanent reminder of what he or she meant to you. Angel tattoos or remembrance tattoos can take many forms from simple black and white line work to full color pieces dancing across endless inches of skin.

If pin-up and polka dots are your thing, you might want to consider getting an old school name tattoo. This decorative style adds filagree and bold black ink to turn your name into something reminiscent of a simpler time. The addition of the vintage swallow design completes this look. To spice this one up a bit, consider adding some vibrant color to the filagree or shading into the name.

This blocky, 3D lettering style mimics the tags you see on overpasses and alleyways. You can choose to do your graffiti name in black and grey or go bold with bright, vibrant colors. While the letters stand well on their own, you can choose to add artistic elements that personalize your design. The lettering alone fits well in long areas like along the back, chest, forearm and calf, while pieces incorporating imagery may work better along the abdomen or back, depending on the size of the name design.

Sometimes committing to the perfect name tattoo can be hard, especially if you are leery of etching a name into your skin. However, hidden name tattoos offer you the opportunity to add the name but make it so it's not completely visible. Similar to a visual illusion, these tattoos might take two or three looks before people see the name etched within.

Filagree can work really well on women to give that hidden name tattoo a feminine touch while tribal or bolder line work can add a level of masculinity. Color and grey wash can also add a 3D illusion, making it even harder to ascertain the name lying within.

A tribal band is another great option for hiding a name within a tattoo. Using the curvature and thick bold line, you can work a name into the tattoo that makes it a work of art on its own and symbolizes someone special to your heart. While these bands work great on the bicep, you can also use them on the ankle as well. Color can be easily added to give this a more feminine appeal.

Is your love endless and enduring? A lemniscate, also known as an infinity symbol, represents infinity in mathematics. It shows that something goes on endlessly. Coupling this with a name shows your enduring love for someone. This could be your child, family member, spouse or anyone else held close to your heart.

Placement, colors, and customization of this symbol are as infinite as the symbol itself. You might chose to have the names creating the symbol, the name flowing through the symbol, or incorporate imagery to really define the person that you are celebrating for eternity.

The heart tattoo with a banner is one of the single most traditional and widely recognized tattoos. This versatile tattoo is typically used to signify a deep love for another, which is why a heart with the word 'Mom' is a common tattoo. However, this can symbolize love, hope, or betrayal depending on the other elements within the design like swallows, daggers, and flames.

Those leaning toward traditional will typically get these in black, red, and grey. However, full color designs add vibrance and depth to the piece. Several different writing styles from handwriting to Celtic styles can work great; it all depends on your own personal style.

A fun way to liven up your handwritten or calligraphy name tattoo is to add shapes like a heart into the mix. With the intricate flourishes already found on this typeface, you can easily mold one of the letters into a heart, displaying how much that person means to you. While color can be added to really make the heart pop, these designs typically work best as a simple one or two color design.

No matter what style of name tat you choose, from bold and obvious to delicate and subtle, there are dozens of ways you can incorporate a special name into your personal work of art.