Roman Numeral Tattoo Generator

• Choose Date or Number. For a date, fill in day, month and year, then the format: full date, month and year, or the year alone.
• Pick a separator, a layout and a font. One line suits wrists and collarbones; stacked puts each part on its own line; vertical puts one letter under the other.
• Read the check list under the preview: every part is converted and validated on its own.
• Download the PNG to show the studio, or the SVG if the artist works in a vector program.

In the United States dates are written month, day, year; most other countries write the day first (source: iso.mit.edu). July 4, 2026 becomes VII.IV.MMXXVI in the US order and IV.VII.MMXXVI in the day-first order. Choose the order the people who will read the tattoo use.

Year, month, day is the ISO 8601 order (source: blog.ansi.org): MMXXVI.VII.IV. It avoids the day/month confusion, but few people read a date that way at a glance.

When the day is 12 or lower, the day and the month can be swapped without anyone noticing. The check list warns you when that happens.

Dots and middle dots are the most common in date tattoos. On fine-line work, a middle dot or a space keeps the numerals apart without adding a mark that can blur. Slashes and hyphens look like handwriting and get longer.

Script and blackletter fonts look good at large sizes but lose detail when small: the strokes of V and X can close up. For a small piece, a font with simple capitals, like Cinzel or Space Mono, holds up better. Wide spacing helps for the same reason.

• IIII instead of IV. Clock faces often use IIII (source: en.wikipedia.org), but the standard form is IV, and that is what the generator writes: IV.IV.MMXXVI.
• Day and month swapped. VII.III.MMXXVI is 7 March in most countries and July 3 in the US.
• The digit 1 or a lowercase l in place of I. In print they can look the same; on skin they do not.
• A bar over the year. A bar multiplies a numeral by 1,000, so MMXXVI with a bar means 2,026,000. Years up to 3999 never need it.
• Letters added or dropped when the design is redrawn by hand. Compare the stencil with the check list letter by letter.

• Ask someone who knows the date to read the numerals back to you without seeing the original.
• Bring the check list (part by part) together with the image.
• Confirm the order and the separator with the artist, and check the stencil again before the needle starts.
• If the design has a name, check its spelling too: the generator does not.

All the fonts are under the SIL Open Font License 1.1. It lets you use them in any artwork, tattoos and commercial work included; what it does not allow is selling the font files on their own. Each font is downloaded only when you pick it.