Birthstones by month: what the lists actually are

Short answer: the birthstone list most shops use is a twentieth-century trade standard, not an ancient one, and other traditions give different answers for the same month. It is a pleasant way to choose a stone — just do not treat any single version of it as the authoritative one.

Where the list came from

Linking stones to months is old, but the list in general circulation today was adopted by the American jewellery trade in 1912 and has been amended several times since, with stones added rather than removed. That is why several months now have two or three "official" stones. Older European, Arabic and Indian traditions each name their own stones, and they do not agree with the modern list or with each other.

The list in common use

  • January — garnet
  • February — amethyst
  • March — aquamarine, bloodstone
  • April — diamond
  • May — emerald
  • June — pearl, moonstone, alexandrite
  • July — ruby
  • August — peridot, spinel
  • September — sapphire
  • October — opal, tourmaline
  • November — topaz, citrine
  • December — turquoise, zircon, tanzanite

What the stones are not

We make jewellery, not claims. A birthstone is a pleasant convention for choosing a colour that means something to the person wearing it; we do not say that any stone affects health, luck or anything else. If you want to read what the stones themselves are as materials, that is in natural gemstones and their meanings.

Natural and lab-created

We work with both natural stones and lab-created ones, and we say which is which on the product page — a lab-created stone has the same composition as its natural counterpart and is grown rather than mined. That difference is explained in are lab-created stones real stones.

What we have in each colour

Not every stone on the list above is something we make. What is currently on the bench is grouped by stone: garnet, amethyst, emerald, moonstone, ruby, sapphire, turquoise, onyx, agate and amber. If you are buying for someone else and do not know their size, read buying a ring as a gift without knowing the size first.

Pieces from our collection related to this guide