Tattoo lettering

Old English font tattoo generator, checked before the ink

Type the name, word or year you want and see it in eight real typefaces, numbers included. Curve it, print it at the size it will be inked, and save the one you choose as an image for your artist.

Type or paste here

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Bold Fraktur

Safe in all 5 apps we checked

𝕭𝖑𝖊𝖘𝖘𝖊𝖉 1991

All 6 styles

Real type

Your tattoo text in eight real typefaces

The line above is characters your phone draws in its own font, and it leaves the year in plain digits. These eight are typefaces: every numeral exists and the shapes match on every screen. Curve it, try it on skin, then save it as a PNG or print it at the size it will be inked.

Blessed 1991

UnifrakturMaguntia

A true fraktur, from Mainzer Fraktur, a 1901 type. The closest of these to what people mean by Old English.

Blessed 1991

Pirata One

Heavier and more condensed. Holds up at small sizes, where the finer faces fill in.

Blessed 1991

Grenze Gotisch

A modern gothic with a full weight range. The most readable of these in a long line.

Blessed 1991

Eagle Lake

Calligraphic rather than blackletter proper, with long tails. Best for a short name.

Blessed 1991

UnifrakturCook

The heavy sister of UnifrakturMaguntia, from the same project. Bold only, so it holds together from across a room.

Blessed 1991

Texturina

A textura, the upright gothic of the first printed Bibles, redrawn so a whole sentence stays readable.

Blessed 1991

Germania One

Narrow and blunt, blackletter bones with the spikes filed down. Fits a long word into a small space.

Blessed 1991

New Rocker

Blackletter with a band-poster swagger. Loud, for a shirt, a logo or a name on a jersey.

What you save here is a picture of the letters, not the letters themselves.

Styles to paste

Old English font tattoo generator styles to copy

Six styles that suit lettering on skin, converting what you typed at the top. Use them to try a look or to message your artist the spelling; the image comes from the typefaces above.

Bold Fraktur

Blackletter

𝕭𝖑𝖊𝖘𝖘𝖊𝖉 1991

Safe in all 5 apps we checked

The pasted version closest to classic tattoo lettering, and the one to message your artist. Every letter is present, so nothing changes weight mid-name.

Fraktur

Blackletter

𝔅𝔩𝔢𝔰𝔰𝔢𝔡 1991

Safe in all 5 apps we checked

Lighter strokes. Its C, H, I, R and Z are borrowed from another Unicode block and draw thinner, which shows when a name starts with one of them.

Bold Script

Script

𝓑𝓵𝓮𝓼𝓼𝓮𝓭 1991

Safe in all 5 apps we checked

Not blackletter at all but copperplate, the flowing hand people often mean by cursive Old English. The heavier of the two scripts, so it reads better small.

Script

ℬ𝓁ℯ𝓈𝓈ℯ𝒹 1991

Safe in all 5 apps we checked

The same script with hairline strokes. Eleven of its letters come from elsewhere in Unicode, so check the capital of a name before you send it.

Outline

Typographic

𝔹𝕝𝕖𝕤𝕤𝕖𝕕 𝟙𝟡𝟡𝟙

Safe in all 5 apps we checked

Hollow letters, close to an outline tattoo, and the only style here with digits of its own, so a year pastes without plain numbers.

Small Caps

Typographic

ʙʟᴇꜱꜱᴇᴅ 1991

Safe in all 5 apps we checked

Capitals at lowercase height, for a quiet line under a bigger word. No blackletter to fill in, and the digits stay plain.

Copied

What to send your tattoo artist

A PNG from the panel above. Not a screenshot of pasted text, which each phone redraws in its own font, and not the SVG, which only names the typeface and opens in a plain serif on a computer without it.

Treat the file as a reference rather than the stencil. Your artist redraws lettering at the real size; what the image settles is the style and the spelling. To judge the size yourself first, print it from the same panel at a width in centimetres and hold it against the spot.

The letters that blur in Old English type

Several blackletter capitals are near copies of each other, and on skin the small difference is the first thing to go. This checks your text against the pairs that came out closest when every capital was set in these faces, and puts yours first.

Checking “Blessed 1991”

B blurs with V in UnifrakturMaguntia, UnifrakturCook and the pasted fraktur.

B and V

In your text

B VUnifraktur, blurs
B VPirata One, clear
B VGrenze, clear
B VEagle Lake, clear
B VCook, blurs
B VTexturina, clear
B VGermania, clear
B VRocker, clear
Pasted, blurs

The V is drawn like a B with one bowl instead of two. It matters more than it sounds for dates, because V is one of the seven Roman numerals.

I and J

I JUnifraktur, blurs
I JPirata One, clear
I JGrenze, clear
I JEagle Lake, clear
I JCook, blurs
I JTexturina, clear
I JGermania, clear
I JRocker, clear
Pasted, blurs

Close to the same shape, with the J only dropping lower. They began as one letter, and fraktur kept their shapes close long after they split. Illinois set in fraktur reads as Jllinois.

A and U

A UUnifraktur, blurs
A UPirata One, clear
A UGrenze, clear
A UEagle Lake, clear
A UCook, blurs
A UTexturina, clear
A UGermania, clear
A URocker, clear
Pasted, blurs

Both are drawn as a bowl with a stroke down the right. The difference is a thin join across the top of the A, which is the first thing to soften on skin.

C and E

C EUnifraktur, blurs
C EPirata One, clear
C EGrenze, clear
C EEagle Lake, clear
C ECook, blurs
C ETexturina, clear
C EGermania, clear
C ERocker, clear
Pasted, blurs

An E is a C with one extra stroke in the middle of the bowl. At a small size that stroke fills in and the two become one letter.

N and R

N RUnifraktur, blurs
N RPirata One, clear
N RGrenze, clear
N REagle Lake, clear
N RCook, blurs
N RTexturina, clear
N RGermania, clear
N RRocker, clear
Pasted, blurs

The same heavy left stem and swash, with a different finish on the right. Read a name containing both back at the size it will be inked.

U and V

U VUnifraktur, clear
U VPirata One, clear
U VGrenze, blurs
U VEagle Lake, clear
U VCook, blurs
U VTexturina, clear
U VGermania, blurs
U VRocker, clear
Pasted, clear

The pairs above are clear in Grenze and Germania One, and this one is not: two narrow stems joined at the foot, one a little rounder than the other.

m, n, u and i together

nunUnifraktur, blurs
nunPirata One, clear
nunGrenze, blurs
nunEagle Lake, clear
nunCook, blurs
nunTexturina, clear
nunGermania, clear
nunRocker, clear
Pasted, blurs

Lowercase blackletter is built from identical upright strokes, so minimum becomes a fence of fifteen of them. Scribes had the same problem and added a dot over the i to break it up.

Old English year and date tattoos, in Roman numerals

A birth year is one of the most common things inked beside the lettering, and there are no Old English numbers to paste: Unicode never encoded blackletter digits. A site showing 1991 in blackletter has swapped them in from another style.

Two routes work. The typefaces above draw the year with numerals that match their letters. Or write it in Roman numerals, which are letters and convert fully.

Type a year or date

Filled in from the box at the top. Change it to any other, like 12.05.1991.

MCMXCI

In Bold Fraktur, ready to paste

Tap to copy

In fraktur, I can read as J and C can read as E. Read it back at the size it will be inked, or set it in Pirata One or Grenze Gotisch above.

Roman numerals run long: 1988 is MCMLXXXVIII, eleven letters for four digits. Check the length before placing it along a forearm.

Popular tattoo years in Roman numerals

Tap a year to copy it in Bold Fraktur. Any other year works in the converter above.

Old English name tattoos

In a name, the capital is what goes wrong: blackletter capitals are ornate enough that people misread their own initials. Type the name exactly as it will be inked and check the capital first. For a single initial, the A to Z chart prints the plain letter under every shape.

Three names show what the check above catches. Isabella opens with an I that fraktur draws almost like a J. Cecilia puts a C beside an E, the pair that fills in first at a small size. Emmanuel runs m, n and u together, which lowercase blackletter turns into a row of identical strokes. Type your own name at the top and it is checked the same way.

Which Old English or gothic tattoo font to choose

An Old English tattoo font nearly always means textura, the dense upright blackletter, and the face behind most of it is Cloister Black. Old London is the softer, more legible choice for a whole word.

A gothic tattoo font is the same family under another name, which the gothic page untangles. Chicano lettering is drawn by hand rather than set from a font; the gangster Old English page covers it. The Old English cursive font people ask for, the flowing blackletter hands, has no Unicode version, and Bold Script above is the nearest thing to paste.

Small Old English tattoos, and where they go

Blackletter is the hardest lettering to shrink: its character is in thin hairlines and tight gaps, and those close first as a tattoo ages. How small is safe depends on the artist, the needle and your skin, so ask in person.

For a small piece, try Pirata One, Grenze Gotisch or Germania One in the panels above, whose heavier, blunter strokes hold up better than the finer UnifrakturMaguntia. For a quiet line under a bigger word, Small Caps keeps every letter one height with no blackletter to fill in.

Placement sets the letter count: knuckles take four a hand, a forearm or collarbone a word or short name, the chest a full name and a date.

Questions

Questions about Old English tattoo fonts

What is the best Old English font for a tattoo?

The one you can still read in your own word at the size it will be inked. For the classic look that is a textura such as Cloister Black, redrawn by your artist; Texturina in the panels above shows the same script in your own word. If your word has letters that blur in fraktur, such as an I beside a J, Old London or Grenze Gotisch keeps it readable.

Is this Old English font tattoo generator free?

Yes, image export included, with no account and no watermark. The typefaces are open licensed and drawn in your own browser, and the pasted styles are plain Unicode that nobody owns.

How do I get Old English numbers for a tattoo?

From a real typeface. Unicode has no blackletter digits, so a site that pastes them has swapped in another style. Type the year at the top, pick one of the eight faces and save it as a PNG. To paste it too, write it in Roman numerals.

How do I write 1991 in Old English for a tattoo?

Type 1991 at the top of this page and the eight typefaces draw it with their own numerals, ready to save as an image. As Roman numerals it is MCMXCI, which the converter on this page gives you in Bold Fraktur to copy.

How small can an Old English tattoo be?

Larger in a dense textura than in an open face. The hairlines and tight gaps fill in first as a tattoo ages, and a safe size depends on the artist, the needle and the skin, so ask at the consultation with the word already chosen.

Can I use the Cloister Black font for a tattoo?

For your own tattoo, in practice yes. Your artist redraws the letters by hand from your reference, and hand lettering is not use of the font file. Its disputed commercial position matters when the file itself goes into paid work, such as printed products or a logo.

Should I send my artist a PNG or an SVG?

A PNG. It is drawn at three times the on-screen size and looks the same on every machine. The SVG names the typeface instead of carrying it, so without that face installed it shows your artist the wrong letters.

Why does my Old English text look different on my artist’s phone?

Pasted fraktur is characters rather than a picture, and each phone draws them with its own font, so an iPhone and an Android handset can show different letterforms. Fine for a bio, useless for a tattoo, which is why the image export exists.