Feel free to work with your tattoo artist to come up with a custom, one-of-a-kind font, like this one.

Photograph courtesy of Tattoologist

Now that you're a real grownup, you can trust yourself to get someone else's initials -- like your sibling's or your child's -- and know that they're there to stay.

Photograph courtesy of Tattoo-Models

We all had a friend of a friend in our twenties who got an embarrassing, misspelled foreign language tattoo. Now that you have the wisdom to triple check, opt for a pretty Latin piece, like this one, meaning "light in the dark."

Photograph courtesy of Odyssey

Another option: Make your first tattoo a family affair with some highly personal ink. "Like your child's drawing," Taylor recommends. In recent years, more parents have committed to getting permanent copies of their kids' artwork and handwriting on their bodies.

Of course, these pieces don't look quite as polished as a carefully crafted lotus flower, but they're meaningful, fun and undoubtedly unique.

How adorable is this drawing for Mom?

Photograph courtesy of Inked Magazine