Traditional tattoo motifs
The swallow, the anchor, the shellback turtle and the other designs sailors tattooed on themselves, and what the Navy’s historians and maritime museums record each one meaning.
Test yourself: Traditional tattoo motifs quiz
Voyages and milestones
- SwallowA sailor’s tattoo for distance at sea. In the US Navy’s tradition each swallow stood for 5,000 nautical miles under way, and a bird that flies far and comes home stood for a safe return.
- AnchorOne of the oldest sailors’ tattoos. The Navy’s historians record that it first marked a man who had crossed the Atlantic; today it is often a young US Navy sailor’s first tattoo.
- Full-rigged shipA tattoo of a square-rigged sailing ship. By sailors’ tradition it marked a man who had sailed round Cape Horn, the southern tip of South America.
- Shellback turtleA sailor’s tattoo for crossing the equator. A sailor who has crossed the line and been initiated by “King Neptune” is a shellback, and the turtle says so.
- DragonA sailor’s tattoo for service in China. In the US Navy before the Second World War a dragon usually meant a tour with the Asiatic Fleet; later it stood for any service in the western Pacific.
Charms and trade marks
- Nautical starA star sailors tattooed to bring them home. The US Navy’s historians record that it was worn so that a sailor would always find the way back to port.
- Hold fastThe words HOLD and FAST tattooed one letter to a knuckle across both hands. Sailors believed it gave them a firm grip on the rigging.
- Pig and roosterA pig tattooed on one foot and a rooster on the other: a sailors’ charm against drowning.
- Rope round the wristA ring of braided rope tattooed round the wrist. In the US Navy it marked a deck seaman.
Sweethearts and wartime
- Dagger through a heartA heart run through by a dagger, often with the motto “Death Before Dishonor”. The Navy’s historians read it as the end of a love affair through unfaithfulness.
- Rose of No Man’s LandA rose tattoo that servicemen wore in thanks to the nurses who cared for the wounded. It takes its name from a song of 1918 written for the Red Cross nurses of the First World War.
About traditional tattoo motifs
Sailors wore tattoos that told their shipmates where they had been and what they did: a swallow for every 5,000 nautical miles, a turtle for crossing the equator, a rope round the wrist for a deck seaman. Each page here gives one design, what the US Navy’s historians, Royal Museums Greenwich and the maritime museums’ exhibitions record it meaning, and where they disagree. The Naval History and Heritage Command is frank about the evidence: the lore of tattooing “remains largely non-academic and often based on oral tradition”, centred on particular tattoo artists and styles.
How sailors came to be tattooed
The English word “tattoo” comes from the Tahitian tatau and was first used in the account of Captain Cook’s first voyage, published in 1769, Royal Museums Greenwich notes. The Navy’s historians agree that Cook’s Pacific voyages exposed Royal Navy sailors to Polynesian tattooing, but add that there are indications seafarers bore tattoos before the 1700s. By the late 18th century, they write, around a third of British and a fifth of American sailors had at least one tattoo. The best record of early American sailors’ tattoos, according to the Independence Seaport Museum’s exhibition “Skin and Bones”, is the protection papers issued after an act of Congress of 1796 to protect American seamen from impressment, which listed tattoos alongside birthmarks, scars and height.
Milestones, charms and trade marks
Some designs had to be earned. The swallow counts the miles, the shellback turtle marks the equator, the full-rigged ship marked rounding Cape Horn, the anchor first marked the Atlantic, and the dragon meant service in China. Others were charms: the pig and rooster on the feet against drowning, hold fast across the knuckles for a grip on the rigging, the nautical star to find the way back to port. The rope and the crossed anchors said what a sailor did on board. The dagger through a heart and the Rose of No Man’s Land belong to the Second World War.
From the waterfront to everyone
Samuel O’Reilly, a New York tattooist, patented the first tattoo machine in 1891, and early American tattooists travelled the eastern seaboard selling their craft to sailors in each port, the Smithsonian notes. The designs on these pages were fixed by flash: sheets of designs that tattooists drew on board or paper and hung on the walls or in the windows of their shops. The Navy’s exhibition “Marked by the Sea” argued that what some call the renaissance of tattooing, dated to the 1980s, began much earlier, in parlours that mainly served sailors.
Sources
- Sailors’ Tattoos: A Basic Primer, Heritage: customs and traditions, published 4 December 2024 (Internet Archive copy, 29 January 2026), Naval History and Heritage Command (U.S. Navy), introduction
- Fascinating facts about tattoos, Stories: topics, Royal Museums Greenwich (National Maritime Museum), introduction
- The Ink of History, Review of “Skin and Bones: Tattoos in the Life of the American Sailor” (Independence Seaport Museum, Philadelphia, 2009; curator Craig Bruns), seen at Mystic Seaport, Commonplace: The Journal of Early American Life, review text
- A Revolution in Tattooing, Smithsonian Snapshot (Internet Archive copy, 22 April 2025), Smithsonian Institution (Smithsonian American Art Museum collection), object text
- Body Art During World War II: From the Lyle Tuttle Tattoo Art Collection, Smithsonian Voices, National Air and Space Museum, 5 October 2020: interview with Danielle Boiardi, curator of the Lyle Tuttle Tattoo Art Collection (Internet Archive copy, 29 September 2026), Smithsonian Magazine, introduction
- Of Swallows, Shellbacks, & Sweethearts, by Lt. Col. Patrick Chaisson, MOAA magazine, October 2023: on “Marked by the Sea: Tattoos in the U.S. Navy” at the National Museum of the American Sailor, Great Lakes, Illinois, Military Officers Association of America, Ink then and now
Researched, edited and approved by Rory Hansen before publishing. Last reviewed October 9, 2026. How we research