Anchor
One 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.
Meaning
“Originally indicated a mariner who had crossed the Atlantic,” the Naval History and Heritage Command’s primer on sailors’ tattoos says of the anchor. Royal Museums Greenwich gives the same reading: an anchor shows the wearer has sailed the Atlantic Ocean. In today’s US Navy, the primer adds, an anchor may be the first nautical tattoo a young sailor gets, often on the first liberty after boot camp, and is in effect an initiation rite into the naval service. The Navy’s National Museum of the American Sailor gave a looser meaning in its exhibition “Marked by the Sea”: an anchor suggests stability. It is a sailor’s tattoo first, and also a Christian one: the Catholic Encyclopedia counts the anchor, a sign of hope, among the most ancient Christian symbols.
Origin and history
The archaeologist Joann Fletcher, speaking to Smithsonian magazine, links the anchor to the dangers of the work. After Captain Cook’s voyages, she says, tattoos became fashionable among European men such as sailors and coal miners, both in risky trades, which presumably explains the “almost amulet-like” anchors and miners’ lamps on their forearms.
The design itself came to the US Navy from Britain. The Navy’s uniform history traces the fouled anchor, an anchor with its rope wound round it, to the seal of Lord Howard of Effingham, Lord Admiral of England when the Spanish Armada was defeated in 1588, and says the Navy took it, like many of its customs, from British naval tradition. The anchor has stayed in the sailor’s repertoire since: JD Smith, who enlisted in the Navy in 1981 and served as a boiler room technician, still has the faded blue anchor he had inked while in the service, Smithsonian Folklife reported in 2021.
Crossed anchors
Two anchors crossed are a trade mark, not a milestone. The Naval History and Heritage Command records them tattooed on the web of skin between the left thumb and forefinger, where they indicate a boatswain’s mate or boatswain: crossed anchors are that rating’s badge in the US Navy. The braided Rope round the wrist round the wrist marked a deck seaman in the same way.
The Christian anchor
The anchor was a Christian sign of hope long before sailors tattooed it, and the Christian anchor tells that history. A tattooed anchor can carry either meaning, or both.
Read next
- Next in Traditional tattoo motifsFull-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.
- The anchor as an early Christian sign of hope, long before sailors tattooed it.AnchorAn anchor, one of the oldest Christian symbols. It stands for hope, and in the catacombs of Rome it was also a way of drawing the cross without showing it openly.
See also
Rope round the wrist, Swallow, Shellback turtle, Dragon, Nautical star, Hold fast.
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), Some Traditional Sailors’ Tattoos: Anchor; Crossed anchors
- Fascinating facts about tattoos, Stories: topics, Royal Museums Greenwich (National Maritime Museum), 10 interesting facts about tattoos
- 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, opening
- The Worldwide History of Tattoos, by Cate Lineberry (interview with Joann Fletcher, University of York), Smithsonian Magazine, 1 January 2007, updated 18 October 2023 (Internet Archive copy, 25 August 2026), Smithsonian Magazine, interview with Joann Fletcher
- Uniform history FAQs, Navy Uniforms, FAQ resources (PDF), MyNavy HR (U.S. Navy), Fouled anchor
- Memorials in Pen and Ink: The Art of Navy Veteran JD Smith, by Isabel Spiegel, Folklife Magazine, 28 May 2021 (Internet Archive copy, 11 February 2026), Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage, story text
- The Anchor (as Symbol), The Catholic Encyclopedia (1907–1912), via New Advent, article text
The same shape elsewhere
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Researched, edited and approved by Rory Hansen before publishing. Last reviewed October 9, 2026. How we research
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