A birthstone is a gift of a precious material (jewelry, mainly gemstones; themselves traditionally associated with various qualities) that symbolizes the month of birth (in the Gregorian Calendar).
It is sometimes also called birthday stone (cf. infra; but that word is, confusingly, sometimes used as a synonym for an anniversary gift, which is related to the recipient's age, that is, year of birth).
There have been many different sets of birthstones used throughout history and in different cultures. In 1912, in an effort to standardize them, the American national association of jewelers, Jewelers of America, officially adopted the following list; it is currently the most widely used list in the United States and many other locations, including Australia and Thailand. Some alternates have been adopted to be a less expensive substitute for a cut stone.
A person's birthday is usually recorded according to the time zone of the place of birth. Thus people born in Samoa at 11:30 PM will record their birthdate as one day before UTC and those born in the Line Islands will record their birthdate one day after UTC. They will apparently be born two days apart, while some of the apparently older ones may be younger in hours. Those who live in different time zones from their birth often exclusively celebrate their birthdays at the local time zone. In addition, the intervention of Daylight Saving Time can result in a case where a baby born second being recorded as having been born up to an hour before their predecessor[4] (but the time the clock is changed back is such that the second of twins does not have an earlier birthday).
While this word has also been used as synonym of Birth stone (see above), there is a separate list of assignment according to the day of the week of the recipient's birth:
Monday : Pearl (the only organic gem), Tuesday : Garnet, Wednesday : Cat's eye (Chatoyant Chrysoberyl), Thursday : Emerald, Friday : Topaz, Saturday : Sapphire, Sunday : Ruby
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