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:

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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?

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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.

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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:

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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:

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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":

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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

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