When A Dictionary Leaves Its Mark on You


This little gem was sent in by Amit, and is just too good to pass.

As the story goes, this girl wanted to write "I love XXX" (boyfriend's name) in Hebrew and tried to accomplish the task using Babylon translation software.

Well, if you read this site, you know where this is leading...

What does this Hebrew Tattoo read?
"Babylon is the world's leading dictionary and translation software"

Oh yeah, THAT bad.

Remember boys and girls, never use an automatic/online translator, and especially if you're translating a name. Sadly, this effort was doomed from the start.

Strength? You'll Need It!

Today's victim really did try. She even asked an Israeli friend to provide the correct translation for her Hebrew tattoo, but to no avail. Tattoos done in Hebrew just have a special way of always going wrong...


This Hebrew tattoo, which was discovered and sent in by Leor, is supposed to say "Lord give me strength". I have to admit, it is grammatically correct. Out poor victim made the mistake of trying to render it vertically, though, all by herself. Bad idea!

Below is how "Lord give me strength" is supposed to be written in Hebrew. They're the exact same words as in the tat. Can you spot what went wrong?



Mistake #1: This Hebrew tattoo is backwards. Unlike English, Hebrew is written right-to-left, so the rightmost letter should be on top, in a vertical tattoo.

Mistake #2: Letter Yod is not an apostrophe! Yod is the shortest letter, but it's still a letter, and as such, it deserves its own line when written vertically. In this tattoo, all Yods have to share their living space with other letters :(

Mistake #3: Some letters were replaced by other, similar looking letters. So you can very well read the word "Ten" (give) as "Chen" (grace), and you can read "Koach" (strength) as either "Noach" (comfy) or "Moach" (brain). Yeah, this tattoo could absolutely be read as "Lord give me brains".

Vertical Hebrew tattoos? Kids, don't do them!

Gnome In Natural Habitat

Sometimes, Hebrew tattoos can be all too funny. Take this cute scene, that was forwarded here by Reut, as a prime example:


The tattoo reads in Hebrew as "Gamad", which translates to Gnome.

Why did he do it? No idea! Most likely it's a misspelling, though there's always the possibility that this is a die-hard role-playing geek, taking his character one step too far. The photo shoot setting certainly fits!

There's Something Lacking...

Today's victim was going for a spiritual ring tattoo. She wanted "Mercy" tattooed in Hebrew on her finger, but I guess God had other plans...


There's just a tiny incorrectness in one of the Hebrew letters. A small lack of a line, and this tattoo spells not "Mercy" but "Lack" or "Absence".

See, Mercy in Hebrew is "Chesed", but turn the letter Dalet into a Resh, and you've ended up with "Cheser", which means something else entirely. I like how it is still a real Hebrew word, though.


Dalet and Resh are very similar, aren't they?

Luckily for this woman, her tattoo is very easy to fix. Just add a tiny protrusion to that Resh, and she's back in the righteousnesses business.

Now, this is how "Chesed", which means Mercy and also Grace in Hebrew, is written:

Statue Comes to (Misspelled) Life

This is a statue. It resides in The Israel Museum in Jerusalem, and spells out Ahava (Love in Hebrew), somewhat artistically.


The design became famous, and can be found in Hebrew jewelry and tattoos all over. Incorrect to one degree or another, usually. In an older entry we saw this same design mangled beyond all recognition. In this one, you can tell what it's supposed to be, but it is still misspelled.


It doesn't spell out Ahava, but rather Achbach, which really means nothing in Hebrew.

See, many Hebrew letters are very similar in appearance. For example He, which produces the HA and the last A in Ahava, is quite similar to Chet, which makes a CH sound. The statue has borderline rendition of the letter He, but the tattoo totally crossed that border.

In the Hebrew language, every little stroke can turn your chosen letter into something else entirely.



Want your Hebrew "Ahava" (Love) statue-like tattoo correct? This is How you'd write it in proper Hebrew. It's really supposed to be all in one line, but we're being artistic, yeah?

The Daddygirl Has No Need For Grammar

Today we have a Hebrew tattoo of something unusual, the Daddygirl. I guess Daddygirls happen when men who have children undergo sex transformation?

Well, here's one of these rare creatures, boasting her trans-gendered fatherly pride, ink on flesh:


In reality, this victim was going for an innocent "Daddy's Little Girl" tattoo in Hebrew, but somehow lost the word "little", the proper grammar of a sentence, and the spaces too.

In fact, all that remains are the words "Girl" and "Daddy" mashed together, and so the Daddygirl is born!


Want a proper "Daddy's Little Girl" Hebrew translation for your tattoo? This is how it's supposed to be written:

Her Name was Lost in Rotation

When I first saw this tattoo, I thought it wasn't Hebrew writing at all. It looks like some weird script, Martian maybe?


The victim claims this Hebrew-like doodle to be her name, and on closer inspection I realized that it really was. It just so happened that when trying to render her tattoo vertically, some letters were rotated and some were not, creating this very strange result.

I never had to draw this particular chart before:


In any case, the Hebrew tattoo most likely says "Ebony Eve". Most likely, since aside from being mis-rotated, it's also slightly misspelled. So if you have another interpretation of this name, I'd love to hear it!


And this is how you would correctly write "Ebony Eve" in Hebrew. Ebony on the right, Eve is on the left.


My suggestion, when it comes to words which have letters of different height, is not to rotate it letter by letter. It just doesn't look nice.

Want your Hebrew tattoo to be vertical? Just turn the whole thing 90 degrees counter-clockwise. Like this:

There's Some Gibberish on your Foot

I've stumbled on some fresh bad Hebrew ink today, and here it is for your viewing pleasure:


Two feet. Two girls. Two unknown Hebrew somethings.

This Hebrew tattoo begins with a Mem Sofit (a letter that only goes at the end of a word) which immediately renders it incorrect. The rest of it seems to be random letters.

Ideas, anyone?

The Deathly Hate of Love

Misspelling your Hebrew tattoo can lead to funny results, as we've seen before with semolina boys, the egg girl and several others. This tattoo is no exception:


Today's victim was going for a poetic message: "Loyalty before love" tattooed in Hebrew. But something went wrong with the translation of the word loyalty; It didn't come out quite right... and so the message turned into a completely readable "I'll die before love".

Oh well, at least this one didn't seem to hold love in high regard anyway...


If "Loyalty before love" is your thing, this is how it's correctly translates into the Hebrew language:

Two Letters Short of a Sentence

Today's victim went for a famous quote by Friedrich Nietzsche, for his Hebrew tattoo: "What doesn't kill you, makes you stronger". He miscalculated just a little bit:


I don't know what happened here, maybe this victim didn't have enough money, or couldn't tolerate the pain; perhaps it's the result of a bad copy/paste job. Whatever the reason, this Hebrew tattoo is two letters too short, hilariously turning "What doesn't kill you, makes you stronger" into "What doesn't kill brain".

The word transformation happened by shortening Mechashel (makes stronger) into Moach (brain). Since in Hebrew you don't have to write vowels, this kind of thing will happen with many words when you omit a letter or two.

It's easy enough to fix, just add the two letters to the end of the sentence!

Now, this is how "What doesn't kill you, makes you stronger" is supposed to be written in Hebrew (I've also added a dash for clearer sentence structure):

Removable Beauty

Today we have a video, and not just any old video; a happy ending - the removal of a bad Hebrew tattoo!


It's not all that clear, but the tattoo was supposed to say "Beauty" in Hebrew. As often happens, it ended up backwards. Luckily, the girl decided to permanently remove this ink. Looks painful, that.


Now compare; This is how you write "Beauty" in Hebrew, right to left, as it should be:

Mystery Hebrew Tummy Tattoo

Faces have been concealed on this bad Hebrew tattoo to protect victim identity:


As you can see, it is an elaborate body tattoo, in it's center some large Hebrew lettering that gloriously spells out... Moa. What's a Moa? Your guess is as good as mine.

Misspelling God's Name

Today we have a very untalented speller. This guy was going for a simple (but very visible) Hebrew "God" tattoo. Well, this is what he got:


If you wanted to know just how bad one can misspell "God", this would be your answer. This spelling lacks the letter He, has a randomly added Ayin in the middle, and the Mem isn't in its final form. Also, completely unrelated Nikkud under the Alef.

It looks as if this guy knew how the word was supposed to sound in Hebrew, and tried to transliterate it on his own. Never a good idea! In this case even an automatic translator can do better.

I bet God is none too happy about this ridiculous treatment of his name. I sure am pissed when people misspell my name!


Want to translate "God" correctly to Hebrew? This is how you spell it:

Hebrew Inked Celebs: Doda Elektroda

Today's tattoo was sent to us by Dariusz from Poland, who spotted this prime example of bad Hebrew tattoo on the Polish pop singer Doda Elektroda.



As you can see, Doda and her husband Radek got matching Hebrew tattoos. Radek's tattoo correctly says "Dorota", which is Doda's real name. The tattoo on Doda's arm, however, was supposed to say "I love Radek". Instead, it says "To love a Radek". Grammar fail!

As often happens, tattoos last longer than love, and this couple was soon divorced. Doda regretted her Hebrew folly but didn't learn a lesson regarding foreign tattoos. She promptly covered the Hebrew tattoo with another one, this time in Sanskrit.


I wonder if her Sanskrit tattoo is correct?

Your Name is What? Collin

First, an announcement. You can now comfortably browse Bad Hebrew Tattoos on your iPhone, using our brand new iPhone App, available for free!

Back to buisness, today we have a name tattoo, something we haven't seen in a while. This victim wanted the name Collin, tattooed in Hebrew on his arm. He ended up with this:


To tell you the truth, had this tattoo not been labeled on the site I plucked it from, I would have never been able to interpret it correctly! It reads like a misspelled Ka'alelinen, not at all what the poet intended.

There are several glaring mistakes in this bad Hebrew tattoo. First, the doubling of the letter Lamed - in Hebrew you don't do that, even if Collin does have double L. If it sounds like one L, you write just one Lamed, otherwise a vowel between the two Ls is assumed. Same goes for all double-letter names, such as Anna, Todd or Bobby.

Then, there is the last letter, Nun. The victim unwittingly wrote both final and not-final forms of the letter, instead of using just one. This is a very common (and ugly) mistake, for which alphabet guides and their unaware users are to be blamed.

And finally, the O in Collin is much better represented by a Vav and not the Ayin our victim chose.


Correcting all that, we get a correctly spelled Collin in Hebrew. Note that this spelling can be used for all similarly pronounced names, like Colin or Coline.

King Jesus The Messiah... Or Not Quite

Today we witness a sad Hebrew tattoo indeed. Not only is our victim apparently a Smurf, but his tat is seriously misspelled too.


This guy wanted "King Jesus the Messiah", and he even managed to get his grammar right. The sentence makes perfect sense... if you manage to decipher it, that is.

Unfortunately, Hebrew letters got our guy confused real bad. I see a Yod turned into apostrophe, a Vav turned into Resh, a Lamed turned into number seven with apostrophe on top (how can that even happen??). Also, all spaces are missing.

It's really quite unreadable if you haven't been clued in first. A very bad, sad, blue Hebrew tattoo.

This is what the guy was going for, "King Jesus the Messiah" in correct Hebrew:


If you want to take it a step further, though, the sentence "Jesus the King Messiah" is a more popular form in Hebrew:

Your Love is an Insult

Today's victim was apparently going for "True Love" in Hebrew, but didn't quite get there. Something was lost in translation, and she ended up with this:


This lovely Hebrew tattoo, found and sent in by Ian, does not say "True Love", it doesn't mention love at all! Instead, it roughly says "Truly Insultable". Roughly, because Insultable isn't a real word in Hebrew either. The gust of it is unmistakable, though.

"True Love" in Hebrew is "Ahavat Emet", while our victim's scribble reads "Aliv Emet". Love, Aliv, kind of sounds similar. Could it be some strange transliteration mistake? We'll probably never know.

Anyway, this is how "True Love" is properly written in Hebrew:


Who Saved You? And Where?

Remember the Girl for Free? Today's tattoo, while not quite as horrible, is right up that alley.


This guy went for double trouble. On the left was supposed to be "Saved by Grace", while on the right "John 3:16" in Hebrew. I can tell you right away that his tattoos say nothing of the sort.

The John tattoo is something weird. Quite unreadable, but it definitely doesn't say John nor Yohanan (as the book of John is called in Hebrew). It says Yagan or Saban or maybe even Anne...

The Grace tattoo, however, is far more interesting. See, there isn't always correlation between Hebrew and English word meanings. And so, while "Saved" in English has all sorts of meanings, Hebrew uses different words for save (rescue) and save (put money aside). I bet you can tell which word our victim used.

Basically, instead of "Saved by Grace", this tattoo reads along the lines of "Saved by Mercy [in her bank account]". Yeah, "Grace" is wrong too.

Now, this is how you properly write "Saved by Grace" in Hebrew:


And "John 3:16":



Dictionary Tattoo is a Painful Commitment

I've warned once or twice about using a dictionary for your Hebrew tattoo, but do people ever listen? To further drive the point in, I proudly present: Dictionary Guy.


The guy wanted his Hebrew tattoo to say "Love, Commitment, Pain" and looked the words up in a dictionary. He was probably surprised when it turned out to be such a long tattoo.

Well, the length should have been a clue. This tattoo has all the possible synonyms of the selected words. It also features creative punctuation and total misunderstanding of the letter Yod. Overall, this Hebrew tattoo is a big, huge, painful mess.

On the right is Commitment. It's written bottom-to-top (nice touch!) and reads:
Commitment; Obligation

In the middle is Love, and yes it says all that:
Love; Beloved; Cute; Buddy; Zero (in tennis)

On the left is Pain:
To hurt someone; Pains me


This is how you actually write "Love, Commitment, Pain" in Hebrew. Short and sweet.


I've written the words with commas between, as it makes much more sense than reading it as a sentence.

Want to learn Hebrew and avoid this kind of blunder? Here are some books:
Teach Yourself to Read Hebrew
Hebrew for Dummies

Puzzle Girl Gets Random Tattoo

For some, getting a plain old Hebrew tattoo is not enough, they just have to be creative. Check out Puzzle Girl here, can you tell what she was going for?


This genius of creativeness got 3 random words, but she couldn't write them right-to-left like normal people, oh no. She wrote them from top to bottom and didn't bother to space the words apart. It looks like one of those how-many-words-can-you-find puzzles, who cares for a game?

Curious about her original Hebrew words?

Mashal - either Story or He Reigned
Tsedek - Justice
Racham - Either Egyptian Vulture or a bastardized form of Mercy

Did I say random?