Persian Tattoo: Words, Phrases and the Mistakes to Avoid

A good Persian tattoo starts with a correctly spelled word, written right to left with every letter joined the way Persian joins them. Popular choices are عشق (eshgh, love), امید (omid, hope), آزادی (âzâdi, freedom) and صبر (sabr, patience). Most bad Persian tattoos come from reversed or unjoined letters, Arabic letter shapes and missing dots.

Below you will find tattoo words grouped by theme, a few short poetic lines with their authors, the classic mistakes with examples, a quick look at Nastaliq and Naskh styles, and a checklist you can run through before you book the appointment. Every word comes with its pronunciation, so you can also say what you are wearing.

How Persian script works (the two-minute version)

You do not need to read Persian to get a good tattoo, but knowing four facts will help you spot a bad design immediately.

• It runs right to left. The first letter of a word is on the right. In عشق, the ع comes first, on the right, and the ق ends the word on the left.
• Letters join. Persian is always cursive, in print too. Most letters connect to the next one, and each letter changes shape depending on whether it stands at the start, middle or end of a word.
• Seven letters never join to the letter after them: ا د ذ ر ز ژ و. That is why آزادی looks like small separate pieces, and that is correct.
• Dots matter. Many letters share the same basic shape and differ only in the number and position of their dots. One missing dot can turn a word into a different word or into nonsense.

If you want to go deeper, our Farsi alphabet lessons show every letter in all of its forms, and the Persian alphabet guide explains joining in more detail.

Persian tattoo words: love, heart and soul

These are the words Iranians themselves most often write on cards, jewelry and, yes, skin. The pronunciation column uses â for the long “aa” sound and gh for the throaty sound of ق and غ.

Listen: عشق Listen مهر Listen جان Listen روح Listen

For romantic phrases rather than single words, see our guide to how to say I love you in Persian, which also covers terms of endearment.

Words for hope, strength and peace

Listen: امید Listen آزادی Listen صلح Listen صبر Listen آرامش Listen

Family words

Family tattoos are very common among Iranians abroad, often a single word with a date. These come from our Persian family vocabulary list.

Listen: خانواده Listen مادر Listen خواهر Listen

Want a name instead of a word? Names follow their own spelling rules, because Persian often has several letters for one English sound. Try our write your name in Persian tool for a first version, and then have it checked by a native speaker as described below.

Short Persian phrases and poetry lines for tattoos

Persian poetry is a favorite source for tattoos, and for good reason. Keep the line short (long verses become unreadable on skin), and only use lines whose original Persian you have seen in a reliable edition. Many “Rumi quotes” online are modern English inventions with no Persian original; our post on real Rumi quotes in Persian explains how to tell.

This too shall pass

این نیز بگذرد (in niz bogzarad) Listen means “this too shall pass”. It is one of the most requested Persian tattoos. The saying is old and is linked to a well-known story about a king’s ring, told by several Persian writers, so it is best presented as a Persian saying rather than as a line by one poet.

Hafez: love makes you live forever

هرگز نمیرد آن که دلش زنده شد به عشق (hargez namirad ân ke delash zende shod be eshgh) Listen means “Whoever’s heart has come alive through love will never die”. It is the first half of a line from a ghazal by Hafez (14th century). Iranians recognize it instantly, which makes it a good choice if you want people to know where it comes from.

Saadi: we are members of one body

بنی آدم اعضای یک پیکرند (bani âdam a’zâ-ye yek peykarand) Listen means “Human beings are limbs of one body”. It opens a famous poem in Saadi’s Golestan (13th century) about shared humanity. You will also see the version اعضای یکدیگرند (a’zâ-ye yekdigarand, “are limbs of one another”); both appear in print, so pick one and copy it exactly from a single source.

Rumi: from above we came

ما ز بالاییم و بالا می‌رویم (mâ ze bâlâyim-o bâlâ miravim) means “We are from above, and to above we go”. It is from a ghazal in Rumi’s Divan-e Shams. For more verses with translations, browse our collection of Persian poems.

The classic Persian tattoo mistakes

Native speakers share photos of broken Persian tattoos all the time. Almost all of them come from the same handful of errors, and almost all of them happen when someone types Persian into software that does not support it, or copies text from a translation app without understanding it.

1. Letters reversed and unjoined

When a program does not support right-to-left text, it prints the letters one by one, from left to right, in their isolated shapes. The word عشق then comes out as three separate letters in the wrong order, like this: ق ش ع. To a Persian reader this is not a word at all. If your design shows a row of separate letters with gaps between them, stop.

2. Right order, but no joining

A subtler version keeps the order but shows each letter in its isolated form: ع ش ق instead of عشق. In real Persian, only the seven letters ا د ذ ر ز ژ و leave a gap after themselves. Any other gap inside a word is a mistake.

3. Arabic letter shapes instead of Persian ones

Persian and Arabic share an alphabet, but two common letters look different. The Persian ی (ye) has no dots when it ends a word, while the Arabic version has two dots underneath. The Persian ک (kâf) has a slanted stroke on top, while the Arabic version, at the end of a word, drops that stroke and has a small mark inside instead. Arabic fonts and Arabic keyboard layouts produce the Arabic shapes, so a word like زندگی can end up with two stray dots under its last letter. Iranians notice this immediately. Arabic fonts may also lack the four letters that only Persian uses: پ چ ژ گ.

4. Missing or moved dots

Dots are not decoration. جان (jân, soul) with its dot moved from inside the curve to above it becomes خان (khân, a title like “lord” or “khan”). تو (to, you) with one dot instead of two becomes نو (now, new). Small tattoos and fine-line styles are where dots get lost, blurred or merged as the ink settles over the years, so make sure every dot is clearly separate.

5. The wrong letter for the sound

Persian has three letters for “s” (س ص ث), four for “z” (ز ذ ض ظ), two for “t” (ت ط), two for “h” (ه ح) and two for “gh” (غ ق). Converting English letters to Persian letters one by one (Finglish to Persian) often picks the wrong one. صبر written with س is a spelling mistake every Iranian will see.

6. The wrong word from a translation app

English words have several meanings, and an app may pick the wrong one. “Free” can come back as رایگان (râyegân), which means free of charge, as in a free sample. For freedom you want آزادی or آزاد (âzâd, free). “Soul” may come back as روح when you wanted the warmer جان. Check the meaning in both directions, for example in our Persian dictionary, and ask a native speaker how the word feels, not just what it means.

7. Stacked letters and broken lines

Persian letters cannot be stacked one under another like a vertical English word down the spine. The letters must stay joined along their line. If you want a vertical design, the usual solution is to rotate the whole word as one unit. Also avoid breaking a word across two lines; Persian does not hyphenate.

Choosing a style: Nastaliq, Naskh and others

The same word can look very different depending on the script style. These are the main options a tattoo artist or calligrapher will offer:

• Nastaliq (نستعلیق, nasta’ligh): the flowing, sloping style that is most typical of Persian calligraphy and poetry. It is beautiful and instantly “Persian” to Iranians. The downside: thin strokes and tightly placed dots need enough size to stay readable as the tattoo ages.
• Naskh (نسخ, naskh): the clear, rounded style that most printed Persian fonts are based on. It is the easiest to read and the safest for small tattoos.
• Shekasteh (شکسته, shekaste): a fast, “broken” form of Nastaliq. It looks dramatic, but many Persian readers struggle to read it, so it suits art pieces more than words you want people to understand.
• Modern fonts: many Persian typefaces are designed for screens and signs. They are clean and legible, and they look contemporary.

Whichever style you choose, make sure it is a Persian font or a Persian calligrapher’s work, not a generic “Arabic style” font. If you like the art form itself, our guide to Persian calligraphy explains each script and its history.

How to check your tattoo with a native speaker

A quick check by a native speaker costs almost nothing compared with a cover-up. To get a useful answer:

1. Send the final artwork, not just the word. Many errors (reversed letters, Arabic shapes, lost dots) only appear in the design file or the stencil, after the text has been copied correctly.
2. Ask two questions: “Is this spelled correctly?” and “What does this mean to you, and how does it feel?” The second question catches words that are correct but odd, too formal, or likely to be read as a name.
3. Ask more than one person. Two independent native readers is a good minimum. Iranians are polite, and a single friend may not want to criticize.
4. Check the stencil on your skin before the needle starts. Read it in a photo, not in a mirror, because a mirror flips the writing.

If you are learning Persian yourself, you can type the word with our online Persian keyboard and compare it letter by letter with the design. A few lessons from Read and Write Persian Language in 7 Days are enough to read your own tattoo with confidence.

Check-it-yourself list

Before you approve the design, go through these points. You can do every one of them without reading Persian.

• The writing runs right to left. Compare it with a correctly typed version of the word on a website you trust.
• The letters are joined. Gaps appear only after ا د ذ ر ز ژ و.
• The letters have their end, middle and start shapes, not a row of isolated letters.
• Every dot is there, in the right place, and clearly separate from its neighbors.
• A final ی has no dots under it, and any ک has its slanted top stroke.
• Any آ at the start keeps the mark on top.
• No word is split across two lines and no letters are stacked vertically.
• The size is large enough for dots and thin strokes to survive years of skin changes.
• At least two native speakers have read the final artwork and told you what it means to them.

To get faster at telling similar letters apart, try the Persian alphabet quiz.

Common questions

What is the Persian word for love for a tattoo?

The most popular choice is عشق (eshgh), deep or passionate love, the word of Persian love poetry. For a gentler, caring kind of love, مهر (mehr) is a lovely alternative.

Is Farsi the same as Arabic for a tattoo?

No. Persian (Farsi) and Arabic are different languages that share most of an alphabet. The same English word usually has a different word in each language, and Persian uses its own letter shapes for ی and ک plus four extra letters (پ چ ژ گ). An “Arabic tattoo” font or translator will often produce something that looks wrong to Iranians.

How do I write “this too shall pass” in Persian?

Write این نیز بگذرد (in niz bogzarad). It is a well-known Persian saying. Copy it from typed text rather than retyping it, and keep the three words on one line.

Which Persian font is best for a tattoo?

For a classic Persian look, Nastaliq; for maximum readability, especially at small sizes, Naskh or a clean modern Persian font. Avoid fonts made only for Arabic, and avoid very thin lines that may blur over time.

How can I make sure my Persian tattoo is correct?

Show the final artwork (not just the word) to at least two native speakers, ask what it means to them, and run through the checklist above: right to left, joined letters, correct dots, Persian ی and ک, and a size that keeps every dot clear.

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