There's a reason the question "What does this tattoo mean?" is worth asking before getting inked. It's a big decision, and it's important to know what you're committing to. The tattoos people regret are rarely the ones they didn't think about.
Symbols have meanings, and those meanings can be powerful. The broken arrow or the bee might not seem like much, but there's a story behind them that makes them stand out in a crowd of other symbols. There are five designs that often prompt curiosity, for example: an anchor, a heart, a rose, a serpent, and a star. An anchor means strength and stability, suggesting that you are the rock on which others depend or that you yourself are the source of strength.
Design Families and Broader Symbol Traditions
The American traditional tattoo design family includes all sorts of multifaceted symbols, representing ideas of mortality, courage, protection, rebellion, and transformation. But there are also Nordic, Norse, and Icelandic symbols. Viking runes were used as magical charms to ward off evil, and the Vikings themselves had a symbol for health. The Icelandic symbol for love was called a "kiss," and the runic alphabet from Iceland has its own meaning.
These categories help to search for meaning in symbols. The history of tattoo symbolism is long and varied, drawing from ancient symbols through modern ones. But it is also important to remember that any given symbol is just a starting point, not a fixed definition. While some symbols have traditional meanings, how they come to be meaningful to us depends largely on our own context.
Personal Meaning Still Matters Most
A butterfly, for example, could represent saving, but that would only make sense if the person had a memory tied to butterflies, or if their mother had one. A butterfly alone is simply a butterfly. If someone wants to get a butterfly tattoo, they need to consider what it represents to them personally. Most of the most meaningful tattoos lie at the intersection between the universal meaning of a symbol and the private significance of that symbol to the individual who wears it.