Birthstones by Month: The Complete Chart, Colors & Meanings

By Tolga Kavut, founder of Glamour Jewelry House · Updated September 2026

Every month of the year has a gemstone that belongs to it. January has garnet, June has pearl, December has turquoise — and behind each pairing sits about three thousand years of history, a color with its own meaning, and, in a few interesting cases, a committee of American jewelers arguing in a Kansas City hotel in 1912.

I’ve set every one of these stones into necklaces, rings and bracelets for more than 21,000 customers, so this guide is written the way I’d explain it across the workbench: what each birthstone is, what its color stands for, which months have more than one stone and why, and what’s actually worth knowing before you buy one for yourself or engrave it into a gift.

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The birthstone chart: all 12 months at a glance

These are the birthstones by month on the modern American list — the one US jewelers have used since 1912, with a few later additions flagged below. Open any month for the full guide to that stone.

Six months officially have more than one stone. June adds alexandrite and moonstone; August adds spinel and sardonyx; October adds pink tourmaline; November adds citrine; December adds tanzanite and blue zircon; and March keeps bloodstone from the older list. If you were told a different stone for your month as a child, you are probably remembering the traditional list.

• January birthstoneGarnet · Deep red
• February birthstoneAmethyst · Violet purple
• March birthstoneAquamarine · Sea blue
• April birthstoneDiamond · Colorless
• May birthstoneEmerald · Vivid green
• June birthstonePearl · Cream white
• July birthstoneRuby · Rich red
• August birthstonePeridot · Olive green
• September birthstoneSapphire · Royal blue
• October birthstoneOpal · Play-of-color
• November birthstoneTopaz · Golden yellow
• December birthstoneTurquoise · Robin’s-egg blue

Shop birthstone jewelry

Every piece below is made to order in 18K gold with the birthstone of your choice — pick the month’s stone at checkout, and add a name, initial or date if you want it engraved.

Natural Birthstone NecklaceFrom $57 Birthstone RingFrom $57 Family Birthstone NecklaceFrom $59 Personalized Birthstone BraceletFrom $59 Teardrop Birthstone NecklaceFrom $58 Custom Name Necklace with BirthstoneFrom $59

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What are birthstones, exactly?

A birthstone is the gemstone assigned to the calendar month you were born in. Wear the stone of your month and, tradition says, it works a little harder for you: garnet protects a January traveler, sapphire keeps a September promise, opal carries an October daydream. The idea is old enough that nobody owns it — it passed from scripture to astrology to Polish gem traders to American retail, changing shape each time — which is exactly why it survived.

Birthstones go by month, not zodiac sign. Zodiac stones exist too, overlapping two months each, but when someone asks “what is my birthstone,” the answer keyed to the birth month is the one on the chart above. If your birthday sits at the edge of a sign, your month still gives exactly one answer — which is precisely why the month system beat the zodiac system in jewelry stores.

Who invented birthstones? A three-thousand-year handoff

The trail starts in the Book of Exodus, with the breastplate of Aaron: twelve stones in four rows, one for each of the twelve tribes of Israel. In the first century, the historian Flavius Josephus connected those twelve stones to the twelve months and the signs of the zodiac — the first time anyone put “twelve stones” and “twelve months” in the same sentence.

For most of the next 1,600 years, people who could afford it wore all twelve stones, rotating them month by month. The modern habit — wearing only the stone of your own birth month, all year — seems to have taken hold in 18th-century Poland, among gem traders and the families they sold to.

Then commerce tidied it up. In 1912 the American National Association of Jewelers met in Kansas City and standardized one official list, so every jeweler in the country would give the same answer to the same customer. It has been amended only a handful of times since: alexandrite, citrine, pink tourmaline and zircon joined in 1952, tanzanite was added to December in 2002, and spinel was added to August in 2016 — the newest birthstone on the chart.

Birthstone colors by month, and what they mean

Ask a gemologist what determines a colored stone’s value and the answer is color, color, color. Ask why birthstones became beloved and the answer is the same. The calendar of stones is really a calendar of colors: the year opens in garnet red, cools through amethyst purple and aquamarine blue, blazes white in April, turns green for spring in May, and closes in turquoise blue — a full circle through the spectrum.

The meanings attached to each birthstone color are remarkably consistent across cultures: red (garnet, ruby) for vitality, courage and love; purple (amethyst) for clarity and royalty; blue (aquamarine, sapphire, turquoise, tanzanite) for truth, calm and protection; green (emerald, peridot) for growth and renewal; white (diamond, pearl) for endurance and purity; and October’s opal refuses to choose, flashing every color at once — which is why it came to mean imagination.

This is also the practical reason birthstone jewelry works so well as a gift: you are not guessing someone’s taste in color. Their month already chose it.

Every birthstone month, in one paragraph each

Each month below links to its full guide — where the stone is mined, its symbolism, how to judge quality, and how to wear it every day.

January birthstone: Garnet

A wine-red gem whose name comes from granatum — pomegranate — because rough garnet crystals look like the seeds. Medieval travelers carried it for a safe journey home; today it reads as loyalty. At 6.5–7.5 Mohs it handles daily wear in a pendant with no fuss, and it is one of the few red gems almost never treated.

February birthstone: Amethyst

Purple quartz, once priced alongside emerald until huge Brazilian deposits made it affordable to everyone. The Greeks named it amethystos, “not drunken,” and drank from amethyst cups to stay clear-headed. It still symbolizes calm and clarity.

March birthstone: Aquamarine

The blue sister of emerald — both are beryl — in the exact color of shallow sea over sand. Roman sailors carried it for safe passage; the palest, cleanest stones look like drops of frozen water. March traditionalists can also claim bloodstone, a dark green jasper flecked with red.

April birthstone: Diamond

The hardest natural material on Earth, which is the whole point: nothing scratches it, so it became the symbol of what shouldn’t wear out. April babies get the only birthstone that doubles as an engagement standard — and the one where a well-cut small stone beats a poorly cut large one every time.

May birthstone: Emerald

Green beryl, the stone of spring and Cleopatra’s famous obsession. Nearly every emerald carries a garden of internal inclusions — the jardin — and stones are traditionally oiled to soften it. That is normal, disclosed, and part of what makes each emerald one of a kind.

June birthstone: Pearl

June is the richest month for choice, with three stones: pearl, alexandrite and moonstone. Pearl is the classic — the only birthstone made by a living creature, needing no cutting or polishing at all. Alexandrite is the show-off, green in daylight and red under lamplight.

July birthstone: Ruby

Red corundum — sapphire’s crimson twin — called ratnaraj, “king of gems,” in ancient Sanskrit. The most valuable color is the slightly blue-red the trade calls pigeon’s blood. At 9 Mohs it is one of the most durable colored stones you can put in a ring.

August birthstone: Peridot

One of very few gems that comes in only one color — a sunny olive green — and one of even fewer born in volcanoes and occasionally delivered to Earth inside meteorites. August also claims spinel, added in 2016, and the ancient banded sardonyx.

September birthstone: Sapphire

Royal blue corundum, the stone of truth and faithful promises — the reason it keeps appearing in royal engagement rings. Sapphires come in every color except red (a red sapphire is, by definition, a ruby), so a September birthstone can be pink, yellow or violet and still be exactly right.

October birthstone: Opal

Hardened silica that diffracts light into shifting rainbows — no two opals repeat. Australia produces most of the world’s supply; Ethiopia added a new source this century. October’s second stone, pink tourmaline, is the practical choice for rings, since opal prefers gentler settings.

November birthstone: Topaz

At its best — the sherry-orange “imperial” topaz once reserved for Russian czars — November’s stone glows like the month itself. Golden citrine is November’s second, friendlier-priced stone, and honestly hard to tell apart across a room.

December birthstone: Turquoise

December has more birthstones than any other month — turquoise, tanzanite and blue zircon, all blue. Turquoise is the elder: beads of it were buried with Egyptian royalty 5,000 years ago. Tanzanite is the newcomer, found in one place on Earth, near Mount Kilimanjaro.

Wearing your birthstone: a jeweler’s honest advice

After setting thousands of these stones, my one-paragraph buying guide is this: for everyday wear, start with a birthstone necklace — a pendant takes far fewer knocks than a ring, which matters for softer stones like opal, pearl and turquoise. If the stone is a hard one (diamond, sapphire, ruby, garnet, amethyst, aquamarine), a birthstone ring will shrug off daily life. And the most meaningful piece I make isn’t for the wearer’s own month at all: it’s a family birthstone necklace carrying one stone for each child, or a personalized birthstone bracelet that lines up every birthday in the family — a calendar you can wear.

Whatever you choose, insist on the real stone, set so it can be worn daily. A birthstone that lives in a drawer isn’t doing its one job.

Birthstone questions, answered

What are the birthstones for each month?

January garnet, February amethyst, March aquamarine, April diamond, May emerald, June pearl, July ruby, August peridot, September sapphire, October opal, November topaz and December turquoise. June, August, October, November, December and March each have additional official stones.

Do birthstones go by month or by zodiac sign?

By month. The modern birthstone list is keyed to calendar months. Zodiac gemstones are a separate, older tradition that overlaps two months each and varies far more between sources.

Why do some months have more than one birthstone?

Because the official list has been amended since 1912 — alexandrite, citrine, tourmaline and zircon in 1952, tanzanite in 2002 and spinel in 2016. Both stones for a month are equally official.

What is the difference between traditional and modern birthstones?

The traditional list is the older European folk list (bloodstone for March, lapis lazuli for December); the modern list is the 1912 American jewelers’ standard with its later additions. Jewelers work from the modern list, but both are genuinely your birthstone.

Is pearl a real birthstone?

Yes — pearl is the official June birthstone alongside alexandrite and moonstone, and the only birthstone created by a living animal rather than formed in the earth.

What is the rarest birthstone?

By natural scarcity, alexandrite (June) and fine imperial topaz (November) are rarest; tanzanite (December) is mined in only one small area of Tanzania. At top quality, ruby and emerald command the highest prices per carat.

Who invented birthstones?

The idea traces to the twelve stones in the breastplate of Aaron in Exodus, was linked to birth months by the historian Josephus in the first century, became a one-stone-per-person custom in 18th-century Poland, and was standardized by the American National Association of Jewelers in 1912.

Can I wear a birthstone that isn’t my month’s?

Of course. People wear the birthstones of their children, partners and parents constantly — that is the entire idea behind family birthstone jewelry.