守
Symbols Protection
protector of family
ㄕㄡˇ shǒu
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.
The one who stands between the family and harm. Chinese builds this from guarding verbs rather than from a title.
Before you commit
Choose with care守 is a verb - to guard. Alone it names the act, not the person, and it is also the everyday word for keeping a rule or a promise.
Pairs well with守護 for the guardian sense, or 家 to name what is guarded. 守護家人 spells it out, though four characters is a lot of ink.
At small sizesSix strokes under a roof radical. One of the cleanest characters here at small scale or on a curve.
Meaning
To guard, to defend, to keep watch; to keep to something.
Guarding as staying put - you hold the ground you are on.
Other characters for “protector of family”
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