What Are Birthstones? The Complete Beginner’s Guide

I have a question for you.

Close your eyes. Think about the first piece of jewelry you ever received that actually mattered. Not the plastic bead bracelet from a carnival. Not the cheap necklace that turned your skin green. The real one.

For me, it was a tiny gold ring with a purple stone so small I had to squint to see it. My grandmother gave it to me on my tenth birthday. “It’s your birthstone,” she said. “Amethyst. For February. Like you.”

I wore that ring until my fingers grew too big, and then I wore it on a chain around my neck, and then I lost it somewhere in my twenties—moving apartments, probably, or maybe just carelessness. I still think about it. I still miss it.

That ring was my introduction to the idea that a stone could carry meaning. That the month you were born could be distilled into something small and purple and wearable. That jewelry could be more than decoration—it could be identification.

This is what birthstones do. They turn the abstract fact of your birthday into something you can touch, hold, give, receive, inherit. They connect you to history, to mythology, to millions of other people born in the same slice of calendar.

And yet, for something so ubiquitous, birthstones are surprisingly mysterious. Where did they come from? How did December end up with turquoise AND tanzanite AND zircon? Why does June have three options while February only has one? And what do you do if you just… don’t like your birthstone?

I spent years in the jewelry industry fielding these questions, and I’ve learned that the answers are rarely simple but always fascinating. So today, I’m going to walk you through everything I wish someone had told me when I was ten years old, squinting at that tiny purple stone, wondering why it was mine.

Let’s start at the very beginning.

Part One: The Ancient Origins (Or, How We Got Here)

The story of birthstones begins with a man named Aaron, a golden breastplate, and twelve stones that have been confusing people for roughly three thousand years.

The Biblical Version

In the Book of Exodus, Moses receives instructions for creating sacred garments for Aaron, the High Priest. Among these garments is the Hoshen—the Breastplate of Judgment—a ceremonial plate worn over the heart, set with twelve gemstones arranged in four rows of three .

Each stone was engraved with the name of one of the twelve tribes of Israel. Scholars have debated for millennia exactly which stones these were—the original Hebrew names don’t map perfectly onto modern gemological terminology—but the general consensus includes carnelian, chrysolite, emerald, turquoise, sapphire, amethyst, and jacinth, among others .

Here’s the important part: Those twelve stones weren’t birthstones yet. They were tribal stones, not monthly stones. The connection between gemstones and individual people existed, but it was based on lineage, not birth date.

The Josephus Connection

The first person to explicitly link the twelve breastplate stones to the twelve signs of the zodiac was the first-century historian Flavius Josephus. In his Antiquities of the Jews, he makes this connection explicit, arguing that the stones correspond to the months of the year .

This was the conceptual leap that set everything in motion. Once stones were attached to zodiac signs, it was only a small step to attach them to calendar months instead. And once that happened, the stage was set for the birthstone system we recognize today.

The Polish Precedent

Here’s where it gets specific. Sometime in the eighteenth century—historians aren’t entirely sure when—Jewish gem traders in Poland began wearing stones corresponding to their birth months. This practice spread to non-Jewish communities, particularly in Germany and other Germanic-speaking regions .

By the early nineteenth century, the idea of a “birthstone” had crystallized into something recognizable to us today. Lists were published. Traditions were codified. People began to expect that the gift they received on their birthday would be a specific stone, in a specific color, carrying specific meaning.

And then America got involved, and everything changed.

Part Two: The Modern List (How It Became What It Is Today)

If you’ve ever looked at a birthstone chart and thought, “Wait, January has one stone, June has three, and December has four?”—you can thank (or blame) the American jewelry industry.

1912: The Great Standardization

In 1912, the National Association of Jewelers (now Jewelers of America) met in Kansas City and did something unprecedented: they created a standardized list of birthstones .

This wasn’t a government mandate. It wasn’t a scientific consensus. It was a trade organization saying, “We need to agree on what we’re selling so customers stop being confused.”

The original 1912 list looked like this:

• January: Garnet
• February: Amethyst
• March: Bloodstone or Aquamarine
• April: Diamond
• May: Emerald
• June: Pearl or Alexandrite
• July: Ruby
• August: Sardonyx or Peridot
• September: Sapphire
• October: Opal or Tourmaline
• November: Topaz
• December: Turquoise or Lapis Lazuli

Notice how many stones have alternates even on this “standardized” list. The jewelers weren’t trying to be prescriptive; they were trying to acknowledge existing traditions while creating practical consensus.

1952: The Revision

Forty years later, the American Gem Society stepped in to update the list. This is where things get messy .

• March lost bloodstone as a primary option; aquamarine took over.
• June gained alexandrite as an official alternate (it had been floating around unofficially).
• August kept peridot but dropped sardonyx from the primary position.
• October kept opal but added tourmaline as a co-primary rather than an alternate.
• November added citrine as an alternate to topaz.
• December added zircon to turquoise and lapis lazuli.

2002 and 2016: The Newcomers

In 2002, tanzanite was added as a December birthstone. This was controversial—tanzanite was only discovered in 1967, making it a relative infant in gemological terms. Critics argued that the addition was driven by marketing rather than tradition. (Spoiler: they were right.)

In 2016, spinel was added as an August birthstone, joining peridot. Spinel has a much longer history than tanzanite—many famous “rubies” in crown jewels turned out to be spinel—but it had somehow never made the official cut before .

The Result

Today, we have a birthstone system that is less a unified tradition and more a palimpsest—layer upon layer of historical practice, industry marketing, and genuine cultural meaning. Some months have one stone. Some have three. Some have four. Some have stones that are rare and expensive; some have stones that are common and affordable.

This is not a flaw in the system. This is the system itself.

Part Three: The Complete Birthstone List (With Everything You Actually Need to Know)

Let’s get practical. Here is every modern birthstone, month by month, with the details that actually matter when you’re shopping for yourself or someone else.

January: Garnet

The Stone: Deep red to reddish-brown, though actually available in almost every color except blue.

The Meaning: Friendship, constancy, trust. Garnet is also believed to protect travelers and promote business success .

Durability: 6.5–7.5 on the Mohs scale. Good for everyday wear with reasonable care.

Price: Extremely affordable. You can get a beautiful garnet for under $100.

The Truth: January babies get unfairly dismissed as having a “boring” birthstone. This is nonsense. Garnet has been treasured for six thousand years, appears in ancient Egyptian jewelry and Victorian mourning rings, and comes in more colors than almost any other gemstone. If you think garnet is boring, you haven’t met rhodolite garnet (raspberry pink) or tsavorite garnet (vivid green) or demantoid garnet (even more vivid green, rarer than emerald).

Best For: First-time gemstone buyers, budget-conscious shoppers, anyone who prefers deep, moody colors to bright, flashy ones.

February: Amethyst

The Stone: Purple, ranging from pale lilac to deep violet.

The Meaning: Sobriety, clarity, peace. Ancient Greeks believed amethyst prevented intoxication—the name comes from amethystos, “not drunk.”

Durability: 7 on the Mohs scale. Good for everyday wear.

Price: Very affordable. High-quality amethyst is abundant.

The Truth: Amethyst was once considered a “cardinal gem” alongside diamond, ruby, emerald, and sapphire. Then massive deposits were discovered in Brazil and Uruguay in the 19th century, and the price plummeted. This is the rare case where abundance, not rarity, determined value. Your grandmother’s amethyst brooch isn’t cheap because it’s low-quality; it’s cheap because we found a mountain of it.

Best For: February birthdays (obviously), Pisces zodiac signs, anyone who loves purple, anyone celebrating a 4th or 6th wedding anniversary.

March: Aquamarine

The Stone: Pale blue to blue-green. The name means “seawater.”

The Meaning: Courage, protection, especially for sailors. Also associated with youth, health, and hope.

Durability: 7.5–8 on the Mohs scale. Excellent for everyday wear.

Price: Moderate. High-quality aquamarine with intense, even color can be expensive; pale aquamarine is very affordable.

The Truth: Almost all aquamarine on the market is heat-treated to remove greenish or yellow tones. This treatment is permanent, undetectable, and universally accepted. Don’t pay a premium for “untreated” aquamarine unless you have a specific reason to do so.

Best For: March birthdays, 19th wedding anniversaries, anyone who loves blue but finds sapphire too expensive, anyone who actually loves the ocean (unlike the rest of us frauds).

April: Diamond

The Stone: Colorless, though fancy colors exist (yellow, pink, blue, etc.).

The Meaning: Eternal love, invincibility, courage. The name comes from the Greek adamas, “unconquerable.”

Durability: 10 on the Mohs scale. The hardest natural substance on Earth.

Price: Expensive. Highly variable based on the Four Cs (cut, color, clarity, carat).

The Truth: You don’t need to spend two months’ salary. You don’t need to buy from a brand with a famous marketing campaign. You don’t need a “perfect” stone—slightly included diamonds (SI clarity) look identical to flawless diamonds to the naked eye and cost significantly less. Also, lab-grown diamonds are chemically identical to mined diamonds and cost 30-50% less. The only difference is origin.

Best For: April birthdays, 60th wedding anniversaries (the diamond anniversary), engagement rings, anyone who wants the hardest, most durable gemstone available.

May: Emerald

The Stone: Green, ranging from light to deep, intense green.

The Meaning: Rebirth, fertility, wisdom. Associated with Venus and romantic love.

Durability: 7.5–8 on the Mohs scale, but brittle. Emeralds almost always have inclusions (called jardin, French for “garden”).

Price: Expensive to very expensive. Fine emeralds can cost more than diamonds per carat.

The Truth: An emerald without inclusions is either synthetic or outrageously expensive. The inclusions aren’t flaws; they’re proof of authenticity. Learn to love the garden. Also, almost all emeralds are oiled to fill surface-reaching fractures—this is standard practice and should be disclosed at purchase.

Best For: May birthdays, 20th and 35th wedding anniversaries, anyone born under Taurus or Gemini, anyone who loves green and has the budget for it.

June: Pearl, Alexandrite, Moonstone

Pearl:

• The Stone: Organic, created by mollusks. Colors include white, cream, pink, silver, gold, black.
• Durability: 2.5–4.5 on the Mohs scale. Very soft. Requires significant care.
• Price: Freshwater pearls are affordable; South Sea and Tahitian pearls are expensive.
• The Truth: “Real” pearls today are almost always cultured—human-assisted but still genuine nacre. Natural pearls (no human intervention) are extraordinarily rare and expensive.

Alexandrite:

• The Stone: Color-change chrysoberyl. Green in daylight, red in incandescent light.
• Durability: 8.5 on the Mohs scale. Excellent for everyday wear.
• Price: Very expensive. Fine alexandrite is rarer than ruby or sapphire.
• The Truth: Most “alexandrite” in commercial jewelry is synthetic corundum (lab-grown sapphire) with vanadium added to induce color change. Lab-grown alexandrite is chemically identical to natural and costs a fraction of the price.

Moonstone:

• The Stone: White to translucent with a blue or white adularescence (floating light).
• Durability: 6–6.5 on the Mohs scale. Requires careful wear.
• Price: Affordable.
• The Truth: Moonstone was added to the June birthstone list unofficially, through popular demand rather than industry decree. It’s the “people’s birthstone” for June.

Best For: June birthdays, 3rd and 30th wedding anniversaries, romantics, mystics, anyone who can’t decide on just one stone.

July: Ruby

The Stone: Red, ranging from pinkish-red to deep, intense “pigeon blood” red.

The Meaning: Passion, protection, prosperity. The “king of gems” in ancient India.

Durability: 9 on the Mohs scale. Extremely hard, though brittle.

Price: Expensive to very expensive. Fine Burmese rubies are among the most valuable gemstones on Earth.

The Truth: Rubies and sapphires are both corundum. The only difference is color—red corundum is ruby; everything else is sapphire. This means pink sapphire and pink ruby are technically the same mineral, and the distinction is often arbitrary.

Best For: July birthdays, 15th and 40th wedding anniversaries, Leos, anyone who wants a stone that announces itself.

August: Peridot, Spinel

Peridot:

• The Stone: Olive green to lime green. One of the few gemstones that occurs in only one color.
• Durability: 6.5–7 on the Mohs scale. Good for everyday wear with care.
• Price: Affordable.
• The Truth: Peridot is formed in the Earth’s mantle and brought to the surface by volcanic activity. Some peridot has also been found in meteorites, making it literally out of this world.

Spinel:

• The Stone: Red, pink, blue, purple, black. Often mistaken for ruby or sapphire throughout history.
• Durability: 8 on the Mohs scale. Excellent for everyday wear.
• Price: Moderate to expensive. Fine red spinel is valuable but still less expensive than ruby.
• The Truth: The “Black Prince’s Ruby” in the British Imperial State Crown is actually a spinel. Some of history’s most famous rubies are spinels.

Best For: August birthdays, Leos and Virgos, anyone who wants a unique alternative to more expensive stones.

September: Sapphire

The Stone: Blue is classic, but sapphire comes in almost every color except red (which is ruby).

The Meaning: Wisdom, virtue, divine favor. Associated with royalty and clergy.

Durability: 9 on the Mohs scale. Excellent for everyday wear.

Price: Moderate to very expensive. Cornflower blue and Kashmir blue are the most prized.

The Truth: Like ruby, almost all sapphires are heat-treated to improve color and clarity. This treatment is permanent and accepted. Untreated sapphires command significant premiums. Also, the sapphire in Princess Diana’s engagement ring (now Kate Middleton’s) is a 12-carat oval blue Ceylon sapphire—and it cost £28,000 in 1981, which was considered unusually accessible for a royal engagement ring.

Best For: September birthdays, 5th and 45th wedding anniversaries, Virgos and Libras, anyone who loves blue.

October: Opal, Tourmaline

Opal:

• The Stone: White, black, boulder, crystal—all with play-of-color (flashing rainbow patterns).
• Durability: 5.5–6.5 on the Mohs scale. Requires careful wear.
• Price: Moderate to expensive. Black opal is the rarest and most valuable.
• The Truth: Opal contains water—up to 10%. It can craze (crack) if dried out too quickly. This isn’t a flaw; it’s physics.

Tourmaline:

• The Stone: More colors than almost any other gemstone. Often multiple colors in one crystal (watermelon tourmaline is pink and green).
• Durability: 7–7.5 on the Mohs scale. Good for everyday wear.
• Price: Moderate. Paraíba tourmaline (neon blue-green) is the exception—it’s rare and expensive.
• The Truth: Tourmaline is piezoelectric—it develops an electrical charge when heated or pressed. This property was used in early sonar technology.

Best For: October birthdays, Libras and Scorpios, artists, anyone who loves color and uniqueness.

November: Topaz, Citrine

Topaz:

• The Stone: Blue is common in commercial jewelry, but natural topaz is actually colorless to pale yellow. Imperial topaz (golden-orange) is the most valuable.
• Durability: 8 on the Mohs scale. Excellent for everyday wear.
• Price: Blue topaz is very affordable; imperial topaz is expensive.
• The Truth: Most “blue topaz” on the market is colorless topaz that has been irradiated and heat-treated. This treatment is safe, stable, and universal.

Citrine:

• The Stone: Yellow to orange-brown. Quartz family.
• Durability: 7 on the Mohs scale. Good for everyday wear.
• Price: Very affordable.
• The Truth: Most citrine on the market is actually heat-treated amethyst. Natural citrine is pale yellow; the deep orange “Madeira” citrine is almost always treated.

Best For: November birthdays, 11th and 23rd wedding anniversaries, anyone who loves yellow and orange.

December: Turquoise, Zircon, Tanzanite

Turquoise:

• The Stone: Sky blue to green-blue. Opaque.
• Durability: 5–6 on the Mohs scale. Porous; requires careful wear.
• Price: Moderate. Fine Persian turquoise is expensive.
• The Truth: Much turquoise on the market is stabilized (impregnated with resin) to improve durability and color. This is standard practice and should be disclosed.

Zircon:

• The Stone: Blue, colorless, yellow, green, red, brown. Not to be confused with cubic zirconia.
• Durability: 6.5–7.5 on the Mohs scale. Good for everyday wear with care.
• Price: Affordable.
• The Truth: Zircon is a natural gemstone with its own identity. It has nothing to do with cubic zirconia, which is a synthetic material. Zircon also has one of the highest refractive indices of any gemstone, giving it exceptional brilliance.

Tanzanite:

• The Stone: Blue to violet-blue. Found in only one location on Earth (Tanzania).
• Durability: 6–7 on the Mohs scale. Requires careful wear.
• Price: Moderate to expensive.
• The Truth: Tanzanite is trichroic—it shows three different colors (blue, violet, burgundy) depending on the viewing angle. Almost all tanzanite is heat-treated to reduce the burgundy component and enhance blue-violet.

Best For: December birthdays, Sagittarians and Capricorns, anyone who loves blue and wants options.

Part Four: The Deeper Question—Why Do Birthstones Matter?

I’ve given you a lot of information. History, lists, prices, durability ratings. But I haven’t answered the question that actually matters:

Why do we care?

Because objectively, birthstones are arbitrary. The modern list is a marketing document from 1912 with subsequent revisions driven by industry lobbying. There’s no cosmic law that says April babies get diamonds and November babies get citrine. It’s just… what we decided.

And yet.

I’ve seen a grown man cry when his daughter gave him a garnet ring for his 60th birthday. I’ve seen a teenager light up when she realized her grandmother’s pearl necklace was also her birthstone, a secret connection across sixty years. I’ve seen couples choose engagement rings not with diamonds but with the stones of the months they met, the months they married, the months their children were born.

Birthstones are arbitrary, but meaning is not.

We choose what matters. We decide what carries weight. And for generation after generation, we have decided that the stone of our birth month matters. It matters because our parents gave it to us. It matters because we give it to our children. It matters because it’s one of the few tangible connections we have to the vast, abstract fact of being born.

You don’t have to believe in the mystical properties of amethyst. You don’t have to consult your birthstone horoscope. You don’t have to own a single piece of birthstone jewelry if it’s not your thing.

But if you do—if you feel that pull toward the garnet counter, if you find yourself lingering over opals, if you’ve ever touched a sapphire and thought, this one is mine—you’re participating in a tradition that stretches back thousands of years, through Victorian England and Polish gem traders and a High Priest in ancient Israel.

That’s not nothing.

That’s everything.

Part Five: How to Choose (When You Have Too Many Options)

Let’s end with something practical. Six months now have multiple birthstone options. What do you do if you’re a June baby who doesn’t like pearls? Or a December baby who finds tanzanite too fragile? Or an August baby who wants something more unusual than peridot?

Option 1: Embrace the Official List

You have multiple stones because the gemological community recognized that people wanted options. You’re not “cheating” by choosing alexandrite over pearl. You’re exercising your birthright.

Option 2: Choose by Color

Don’t like the traditional color of your birthstone? Many birthstones come in other hues. Garnet is famous for this—January babies can wear green tsavorite or pink rhodolite and still be technically correct. Sapphire is another great option—September babies can choose yellow, pink, purple, or even white sapphire.

Option 3: Choose by Meaning

Maybe you don’t care about the month at all. Maybe you care about what the stone represents. If you want a stone of love, choose ruby or emerald. If you want protection, choose turquoise or aquamarine. If you want creativity, choose opal. The birthstone list is a starting point, not a prison.

Option 4: Choose What You Love

This is the only rule that actually matters.

If you love amethyst, wear amethyst. It doesn’t matter if you were born in December. If you’ve always been drawn to pearls, wear pearls. It doesn’t matter if you’re an April baby with a diamond engagement ring. The universe will not collapse. The Gemological Institute of America will not send enforcers to your home.

Jewelry is joy. The moment it stops being joyful and starts being prescriptive, you’re doing it wrong.

A Final Thought, From My Heart to Yours

I never found my grandmother’s amethyst ring. I’ve looked through old jewelry boxes, dug through storage bins, called the apartments I lived in during my careless twenties. It’s gone.

But here’s what I’ve learned: the ring was never really the point.

The point was the moment she slipped it onto my ten-year-old finger, her hands older than I understood, her voice steady. “It’s your birthstone,” she said. “For February. Like you.”

That moment is still mine. The ring was just its vessel.

So when you buy a birthstone for yourself, for your child, for your spouse, for your friend—remember that you’re not just buying a gemstone. You’re buying a vessel. You’re buying something to carry the weight of a moment, a connection, a love that exists whether or not the stone survives.

The stone might break. It might get lost. It might sit in a drawer for years, forgotten.

But the moment you give it? That’s yours forever.

That’s what birthstones are, really. Not minerals. Not marketing. Not month assignments determined by a trade association in 1912.

They’re permission slips. Permission to say: I see you. I know when you entered the world. And I wanted you to have something that reflects that light back at you.

So here’s my question, the same question my grandmother asked me without knowing she was asking it:

What stone is yours? What color catches your breath? What mineral, pulled from the earth or coaxed from the sea, makes you feel recognized?

That’s your birthstone. Not the one on the chart. The one in your heart.

Everything else is just details.

Ready to find your stone? Browse our complete birthstone collection below. Every month, every gem, every price point—all ethically sourced, all hand-selected, all waiting to become someone’s most treasured possession.

[Shop All Birthstones]

[Shop by Month]

• [January: Garnet]
• [February: Amethyst]
• [March: Aquamarine]
• [April: Diamond]
• [May: Emerald]
• [June: Pearl, Alexandrite, Moonstone]
• [July: Ruby]
• [August: Peridot, Spinel]
• [September: Sapphire]
• [October: Opal, Tourmaline]
• [November: Topaz, Citrine]
• [December: Turquoise, Zircon, Tanzanite]