伴
Symbols Relationships
companion
ㄅㄢˋ bàn
Two versions of the same picture, and both are free with no account and no watermark. The first has no background at all, which is the one to send your artist — but a phone or computer photo viewer set to dark will show black strokes on dark grey and it can look like nothing downloaded. If that happens, use the second one: identical characters on a plain white background. Either way you get the characters on their own — the square and the faint guide lines you see above are not in the file. Each character is 1000px, so a two-character download is 2000×1000, and the script and layout are the ones you picked.
Script
Characters
Same in both
Layout
Rubbing mode: white on black, as a stone rubbing. The download is unaffected.
Someone who is there alongside you. Chinese leans on the idea of accompanying rather than on a noun.
Before you commit
Choose with care伴 is as much a verb as a noun, so alone it can read as to accompany. That is not wrong for a tattoo, but it is vaguer than English companion.
Pairs well with同伴 for a plain companion, 伴侶 for a life partner, 老伴 for the spouse you have grown old with.
At small sizesSeven strokes, well spaced. One of the safer characters small or on a curved placement.
Meaning
A companion; to keep someone company.
The plainest and warmest character for the person at your side.
Other characters for “companion”
What to do next
Pick the script and layout you want above, download the PNG, and send that file to your artist. Ask them to work from the file rather than redrawing the character freehand — that is where strokes go missing.
Related concepts