Errors are common enough to be good business for tattoo removal specialists, and to fuel a blog, www.hanzismatter.com, which posts photographs of botched tattoos accompanied by sardonic commentary from Tian Tang, a Chinese-born engineering student.

The blog takes the name Hanzi Smatter from the Chinese term for the ideograms that are composed of as many as 30 strokes and take years of practice to write fluently. Hanzi are also used extensively in Japan, where they are referred to as kanji, and to a lesser degree in South Korea.

Mr. Tang finds plenty of fodder on Web sites like Body Modification Ezine, www.bmezine.com, where entire photo galleries are devoted to hanzi-kanji tattoos. Some of Hanzi Smatter's 2,500 daily visitors e-mail him about tattoos they are thinking of getting or to verify the meaning of tattoos they already have, which sometimes puts him in the awkward position of having to deliver bad tidings.

"I'm very surprised a lot of times that people will e-mail me about their tattoos, and they never found out the real meaning before they got it," said Mr. Tang, 29, a graduate student in materials engineering at Arizona State University who moved to the United States when he was 13. "Some of them are close, but some are just way off."

One elaborate tattoo posted shortly after his blog's inception in late 2004 means "power piglet," according to Mr. Tang's translation. Another, on a woman's lower back, says "motherly beast blessing."

Marquis Daniels, of the Dallas Mavericks, thought he was getting his initials in Chinese characters but what his arm actually says is "healthy woman roof," Mr. Tang said. Similarly, Shawn Marion of the Phoenix Suns was under the impression that his nickname, "the Matrix," was tattooed on his leg, but Mr. Tang says the inscription translates as something like "demon bird moth balls."