5 Best American Traditional Tattoos

American Traditional tattoos signify patriotism. In the era of war, sailors respected nationalism. Importantly, it displayed teamwork amongst the sailors who served the U.S and died for the love of their country. People started showing respect and support by getting patriotic tattoos, as they exhibited both unity and devotion to the soldiers.

American traditional tattoo designs feature thick black shapes and a restricted color palette, with almost no shading. The minimal color range usually includes red, yellow, black, green and purple. Moreover, the traditional American tattoos have less details and flawless precision.

The traditional American ink consists of skulls, roses, eagles, blades, hearts, sailors, mermaids, anchors, ships, the American flag, swallows and women. Although, the American Traditional tattoos are mostly just two-dimensional pictures and not multi-layered designs, the uniqueness of these tattoos is its simplicity and preciseness.

Being simple, these tattoos are easy and quick to create. The American traditional tattoos are mostly those styles and designs that are found in a tattoo artist’s display or reference books. One of the most popular old school tattoo artists is Norman Keith Collins, also known as “Sailor Jerry“.

We have compiled this article to present top 5 American Traditional Tattoo Designs.

1. Traditional Heart Tattoos

Being the most common symbol of passion, heart tattoos portray love. Although, heart tattoos have several meanings. Every heart tattoo holds a unique place and significance to the wearer. In early times, a traditional heart tattoo showed that the person wearing the tattoo had traveled the world. Similarly, American Traditional Heart Tattoos symbolized freedom, unity and strength.

traditional style bleeding heart tattoo on head

image source

compassion heart tattoo

image source

rose heart traditional tattoo

image source

traditional style heart tattoo on legs

image source

traditional heart and dagger tattoo

image source

american traditional heart chest tattoo

image source

2. Traditional Nautical Tattoos

Nautical tattoos refer to the kind of tattoos which were traditionally preferred by sailors. These tattoos were commonly worn by sailors, displaying pictures of swallows, anchors, ships, compasses and mermaids.

traditional nautical tattoo

image source

traditional nautical tattoo sleeve

image source

mermaid and anchor tattoo

image source

compass and anchor tattoo

image source

american traditional clipper ship tattoo

image source

traditional clipper ship tattoo

image source

american traditional anchor tattoo

image source

traditional native american tattoos

image source

3. Traditional Rose Tattoos

Rose tattoos symbolize true and pure love. Traditional Rose Tattoos signify never-ending hope of meeting your beloved again.
american traditional rose tattoo

image source

tudor rose flower traditional tattoo

image source

traditional rose tattoo

image source

4. Traditional Skull Tattoos

Traditional skull tattoos are one of the most popular tattoos. These tattoos mostly represent victory and death. Skull tattoos also mean that an individual has acknowledged their mortality. Another representation of these American traditional skull tattoos is that they are a reminder of the fact that everyone has to die one day, so they should live their lives to the fullest.

american traditional skull tattoo

image source

traditional skull tattoo flash

image source

eagle skull tattoo

image source

5. Traditional pin up girl tattoos

Pin up girl tattoos displayed an ideal image of a woman. While sailors were on the sea, they missed the company of a woman. Since they had no women on the ship, they would get traditional pin up girl tattoos, just to look at them when they wished to accompany a woman.

american traditional pin up girl tattoo

image source

traditional pin up girl tattoo

image source

pin up girl tattoo traditional

image source

american flag pin up girl tattoo

image source

sailor jerry steady as she goes tattoo design

image source

old school pin up girl tattoos

image source

sailor jerry pin up girl tattoos

image source

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.