What is my birthstone by month?

Your birthstone follows the civil calendar, one month, one stone, set by the American jewelers who gathered in Kansas City in 1912: garnet for January, amethyst for February, aquamarine for March, diamond for April, emerald for May, pearl for June, ruby for July, peridot for August, sapphire for September, opal for October, topaz for November, and turquoise for December. A few stones have joined the list since 1912, tanzanite alongside December in 2002 and spinel alongside August in 2016, but the heart of the list has held for more than a century. It isn’t the same as your zodiac stone, which follows the sign rather than the calendar month.

Is a birthstone the same as a zodiac stone?

No, and the two get mixed up often. The birthstone follows the civil calendar: one month, one stone, from the jewelers’ list fixed in 1912. The zodiac stone follows the zodiac sign instead, and since a sign straddles two calendar months, its stone lists shift from one school to the next. Neither list is more “true” than the other: they are two different grids laid over the same wish for a stone tied to your date of birth. When you were born under a sign whose stone matches your month’s stone, the two traditions simply agree.

Can I wear more than one birthstone?

Yes. Tradition once held that owning all twelve stones and wearing each through its own month, when its influence was thought to run strongest, was the ideal. It was only in eighteenth-century Poland, as George Frederick Kunz records, that the habit of wearing a single stone tied to your own birth month took hold and spread. Several months, June and August among them, also carry more than one recognized stone today (pearl, moonstone, and alexandrite for June; peridot and spinel for August), so wearing more than one at once is well within the tradition, not a departure from it.

Crystal healing

Birthstones by Month: Twelve Months, Twelve Companions

This guide is part of the series A Guide to Crystal Healing: What Tradition Lends the Stones, and What You Can Do With Them (part 2 of 4).

Your birthstone is the one custom ties to your month: garnet in January, amethyst in February, all the way to December’s turquoise. The American jewelers who gathered in Kansas City set the modern list in 1912, but the lineage reaches all the way back to the twelve stones of Aaron’s breastplate. It isn’t the same as your zodiac stone: this one you read off the calendar, and tradition gives it a character for every month.

By Jade Nohemia 7 min read June 9, 2026

You almost certainly know your birthstone already, at least by name. It sits in jewelry-shop windows, in christening gifts, on the rings handed over for the round-number birthdays. What fewer people realize is how old the thread is that ties the custom to its source. It runs through a biblical text, a first-century historian, the courts of Central Europe, and a meeting of American jewelers in 1912. Twelve months, twelve stones, and behind each one, centuries of stories.

Where does the birthstone tradition come from?

It all begins, the old sources say, on the chest of a high priest. The Book of Exodus describes Aaron’s breastplate: twelve stones set in gold, laid out in four rows of three, each engraved with the name of one of the twelve tribes of Israel. In the first century, the historian Flavius Josephus offers a reading in his Antiquities of the Jews that would change everything: those twelve stones, he suggests, also answer to the twelve months of the year and the twelve signs of the zodiac. Saint Jerome would pick up the idea, and the bridge was built. Twelve stones, twelve portions of time.

For centuries, custom held that you ideally owned all twelve and wore them in turn, each through its own month, when its influence was thought to run strongest. The gemologist George Frederick Kunz traces the modern habit to eighteenth-century Poland: wearing only the stone of your own month, all year round, like a signature. Then, in 1912, the American jewelers who gathered in Kansas City fixed the standard list that still circulates today. A few touch-ups have followed since, tanzanite joining December in 2002, spinel joining August in 2016, but the heart of the list has held for more than a century.

The twelve companions, month by month

January: garnet. Deep red like a banked fire, it opens the year in the dead of winter. Travelers in the Middle Ages carried it as a companion on the road, and legend has it that a carbuncle, garnet in the language of the lapidaries, lit the way inside Noah’s ark. Tradition gives it constancy and faithfulness: a warmth that holds when everything else freezes.

February: amethyst. Its Greek name, amethystos, means “not drunk.” The Greeks carved cups from this violet quartz, trusting them to keep the head clear, a notion Pliny was already passing along with a raised eyebrow. The stone of bishops in the Middle Ages, it carries measure, clarity, a mind that stays its own.

March: aquamarine. Aqua marina, seawater. Sailors are said to have carried it for calm crossings, the lapidaries tell us, and its pale blue keeps something of a still sea. Tradition lends it quiet courage and clear speech. Bloodstone, green flecked with red, was long its companion for the month.

April: diamond. Adamas, “the unconquerable.” The Greeks gave that name to whatever nothing could touch. The stone of vows, it stands for what does not bend, the love you swear, the will you hold to. The hardest of all minerals, for the month when spring settles in.

May: emerald. Pliny wrote that no green runs deeper, and that gem engravers rested their eyes by gazing at it. The stone of Venus in the old correspondences, it carries renewal, the green of new leaves, love just beginning: everything May already does so well on its own.

June: pearl. Born of a living creature, it is no mineral but a gift of mother-of-pearl. Traditions tie it to the moon, whose milky roundness it shares, and to purity. Moonstone, then alexandrite, have joined it on June’s lists: a whole month under the sign of soft light.

July: ruby. Sanskrit called it ratnaraj, “king of stones.” Burmese warriors, Kunz reports, wore it embedded under the skin to make themselves invulnerable. Red as the heart of summer, it stands for ardor, courage, life beating hard.

August: peridot. The Egyptians mined it on an island in the Red Sea and called it the gem of the sun; legend has it they searched by night, since it was said to glow in the dark. Set in gold, it was thought to ward off the terrors of the night, the lapidaries write. Spinel joined it in 2016.

September: sapphire. Blue as the sky when summer draws back, it was the stone of sages and bishops, credited with truth, faithfulness, and protection against envy. The medieval lapidaries set it closest to the heavens, as if it had been cut from them.

October: opal. Every color lives in its play of light, and tradition long saw it as a stone of hope, said to gather the virtues of all the gems whose colors flicker inside it. Its reputation for bad luck is a recent invention: Kunz traces it to an 1829 novel by Walter Scott. Tourmaline now keeps it company on the lists.

November: topaz. Golden like autumn’s last fires, it was said to soothe anger and steady the heart, the lapidaries wrote. Citrine, its sunny and more affordable lookalike, shares its month today: two stones of light for the season that grows dark.

December: turquoise. Carried from Persia along the trade routes, it protected riders, tradition says, and was thought to pale as a warning of danger. A clear winter blue, it closes the year. Blue zircon, then tanzanite, have joined it on the modern lists.

Birthstone or zodiac stone?

Both exist, and people mix them up all the time. The birthstone follows the civil calendar: one month, one stone, the jewelers’ list. The zodiac stone follows the zodiac: Aries straddles March and April, and its stones shift from one school to the next, some tying them to the sign’s ruling planet, others to the correspondences the lapidaries handed down. Neither list is any more “true” than the other. They are two grids laid over the same wish, the wish for a stone of your own, given to you by the date you arrived in the world.

If you were born in February under the sign of Aquarius, amethyst tends to come up twice, and the question settles itself. When the lists disagree, choose the one that speaks to you: it’s the bond that does the work, not the label. What tradition gives to stones, where they come from, and how to fold them into a daily gesture, all of it unfolds in the guide to crystal healing.

Wearing it, giving it, keeping it alive

The custom has its quiet kindnesses. You give a birthstone for the milestone birthdays, for a birth quite literally, for a farewell; set in a ring or a pendant, it becomes one of those understated possessions that follow you through a whole life without ever falling out of fashion. But the precious version is in no way required: a simple tumbled stone of your month, picked by hand from a shop basket, carries the same story for a few coins.

You can give it a standing date. On the first day of your birth month, every year, take it back in hand and look at how far you’ve come since the year before. It’s a tiny, personal ritual, but this is exactly how stones have held their role since Aaron’s breastplate: by giving time a shape you can hold in your hand. And like any companion for the long haul, it likes to be looked after. The care that tradition has polished smooth, water, smoke, the full moon, waits for you in cleanse and recharge your crystals, along with the mineralogy that goes with it: a pearl or an opal is not handled like a garnet.

Frequently asked questions

What is my birthstone by month?: Your birthstone follows the civil calendar, one month, one stone, set by the American jewelers who gathered in Kansas City in 1912: garnet for January, amethyst for February, aquamarine for March, diamond for April, emerald for May, pearl for June, ruby for July, peridot for August, sapphire for September, opal for October, topaz for November, and turquoise for December. A few stones have joined the list since 1912, tanzanite alongside December in 2002 and spinel alongside August in 2016, but the heart of the list has held for more than a century. It isn’t the same as your zodiac stone, which follows the sign rather than the calendar month.
Where does the birthstone tradition come from?: The custom traces back to the Book of Exodus, which describes Aaron’s breastplate: twelve stones set in gold, one for each of the twelve tribes of Israel. In the first century, the historian Flavius Josephus proposed that those same twelve stones also answered to the twelve months of the year and the twelve signs of the zodiac, an idea Saint Jerome later carried forward. The gemologist George Frederick Kunz traces the habit of wearing only your own month’s stone to eighteenth-century Poland, and it was American jewelers meeting in Kansas City in 1912 who fixed the standardized list still used today.
Is a birthstone the same as a zodiac stone?: No, and the two get mixed up often. The birthstone follows the civil calendar: one month, one stone, from the jewelers’ list fixed in 1912. The zodiac stone follows the zodiac sign instead, and since a sign straddles two calendar months, its stone lists shift from one school to the next. Neither list is more “true” than the other: they are two different grids laid over the same wish for a stone tied to your date of birth. When you were born under a sign whose stone matches your month’s stone, the two traditions simply agree.
Can I wear more than one birthstone?: Yes. Tradition once held that owning all twelve stones and wearing each through its own month, when its influence was thought to run strongest, was the ideal. It was only in eighteenth-century Poland, as George Frederick Kunz records, that the habit of wearing a single stone tied to your own birth month took hold and spread. Several months, June and August among them, also carry more than one recognized stone today (pearl, moonstone, and alexandrite for June; peridot and spinel for August), so wearing more than one at once is well within the tradition, not a departure from it.