Towing tests of warships had demonstrated that a below-water ram shape reduced resistance through the water before 1900. The bulbous bow concept is credited to David W. Taylor, a naval architect who served as Chief Constructor of the United States Navy during the First World War and who used the concept (known as a bulbous forefoot) in his design of the , which entered service in 1910. The bow design did not initially enjoy wide acceptance, although it was used in the  to great success after the two ships of that class which survived the Washington Naval Treaty were converted to aircraft carriers. This lack of acceptance changed in the 1920s, with Germanys launching of  and . They were referred to as Germanys North Atlantic greyhounds, two large commercial ocean liners that competed for the trans-Atlantic passenger trade.  Both ships won the coveted Blue Riband, Bremen in 1929 with a crossing speed of , and Europa surpassing her in 1930 with a crossing speed of 27.91 knots.
The design began to be incorporated elsewhere, as seen in the U.S. built SS Malolo, SS President Hoover and SS President Coolidge passenger liners launched in the late 1920s and early 1930s.  Still, the idea was viewed as experimental by many shipbuilders and owners.
In 1935 the French superliner  was designed by Vladimir Yurkevich combining a bulbous forefoot with massive size and a redesigned hull shape. She was able to achieve speeds in excess of 30 knots (56 km/h). Normandie was famous for many things, including her clean entry into the water and markedly reduced bow wave. Normandies great rival, the British liner , achieved equivalent speeds using traditional stem and hull design. However, a crucial difference was that Normandie achieved these speeds with approximately thirty per cent less engine power than Queen Mary and a corresponding reduction in fuel use.
Bulbous bow designs were also developed and used by the Imperial Japanese Navy. A modest bulbous bow was used in a number of their ship designs, including the light cruiser  and the carriers   and . A far more radical bulbous bow design solution was incorporated into their massively large  battleships, including ,  and the aircraft carrier .