what does this symbol mean?

Navy ranks

Every US Navy rank insignia, enlisted, warrant officer and officer, in order, with its pay grade.

US Navy ranks run from seaman recruit (E-1) to admiral (O-10): enlisted sailors from E-1 to E-9, warrant officers from W-1 to W-5 and commissioned officers from O-1 to O-10. The Navy’s titles are its own. Its NCOs are petty officers, from petty officer third class at E-4, and its O-6 is a captain, the grade the other branches call colonel.

Enlisted 9 symbols

Warrant officers 5 symbols

Officers 11 symbols

Rank and rate

The Navy’s recruiting site defines a rank as a sailor’s level of authority and a rate as an enlisted sailor’s job specialty, such as hospital corpsman. The uniform regulations use the words differently: on a petty officer’s rating badge, the chevrons show the wearer’s rate and the specialty mark between the chevrons and the eagle shows the rating, a caduceus for a hospital corpsman or crossed anchors for a boatswain’s mate.

The seaman recruit wears no stripes

Sailors in pay grade E-1 do not wear a group rate mark, the uniform regulations say, so a seaman recruit has no insignia. A seaman apprentice (E-2) wears two short diagonal stripes and a seaman (E-3) three. The stripe colour shows the group: white on blue uniforms for seamen, red for firemen. The Coast Guard’s seaman recruit does wear one stripe, the Defense Department notes.

Officers: pins, boards and sleeves

Navy officers wear different rank devices with different uniforms: collar pins on khakis, stripes on shoulder boards with whites, and stripes on the lower sleeve with blues. The pins are the same as the other branches’ officer insignia. On the sleeve an ensign has one 13 mm (½ in) gold stripe, a lieutenant two and a captain four; an admiral has one wide stripe with three narrower ones above it.

Chiefs

From E-7 the Navy’s enlisted collar device changes to a gold fouled anchor with silver letters USN, the insignia of a chief petty officer. Silver stars above the anchor mark the senior chief, the master chief and the master chief petty officer of the Navy.

Warrant officer 1 and fleet admiral

The Navy discontinued warrant officer 1 in 1975 and brought it back in 2018 for cyber warrant officers. Fleet admiral, the five-star rank, is marked reserved for wartime only on the Defense Department’s chart. Four officers held it; none have been appointed since William H. Halsey got his fifth star in December 1945.

Sources

  1. U.S. Military Rank Insignia, Resources: U.S. Military Rank Insignia (enlisted and officer insignia by paygrade), U.S. Department of Defense (defense.gov), Navy enlisted, warrant officer and officer tables
  2. 37 U.S.C. § 201: Pay grades, 37 U.S. Code § 201, Pay grades: assignment to; general rules, Legal Information Institute, Cornell Law School, § 201(a)
  3. U.S. Navy Ranks & Insignia, U.S. Navy Ranks & Insignia (navy.com), U.S. Navy Recruiting Command (navy.com), Rank vs. rate
  4. Navy Uniform Regulations, articles 4211–4214: CPO rate insignia, United States Navy Uniform Regulations (NAVPERS 15665J), arts. 4211–4214, Navy Personnel Command (MyNavy HR), arts. 4211, 4212
  5. Navy Uniform Regulations, articles 4221–4227: E-1 to E-6 rate insignia, United States Navy Uniform Regulations (NAVPERS 15665J), arts. 4221–4227, Navy Personnel Command (MyNavy HR), arts. 4221, 4222, 4226
  6. Navy Uniform Regulations, article 4101: Officer sleeve insignia, United States Navy Uniform Regulations (NAVPERS 15665J), art. 4101, Navy Personnel Command (MyNavy HR), art. 4101
  7. Officer Knowledge (Officer Development School), Officer Training Command Newport, ODS Knowledge Book, Naval Service Training Command, U.S. Navy, Marine Corps and Navy rank insignia tables
  8. NAVADMIN 140/18: Modification of the Navy Cyber Warrant Officer Program, NAVADMIN 140/18 (4 June 2018), Chief of Naval Operations, via MyNavy HR, paras 1–2
  9. NIOC Georgia Sailor Selected to Warrant Officer 1, Navy’s First Since 1975, Navy News Service story, December 2018, DVIDS (Defense Visual Information Distribution Service)
  10. Naval Traditions: Names of Rank, “Admiral”, Naval Traditions: Names of Rank, Officer, “Admiral”, Naval History and Heritage Command, Officer, “Admiral”

Last reviewed September 29, 2026 by Rory Hansen. How we research