March Birthstone: Aquamarine
March’s birthstone is Aquamarine, with Bloodstone as the traditional alternative — the meaning attached to it, the color it is, how it is worn, and the zodiac signs that share the month.
- Birthstone
- Aquamarine
- Alternative
- Bloodstone
- Color
- Sea Blue, Cyan
- Recorded for
- Peace, Courage, Intuition, Trust
- Pisces
- stone: Aquamarine
- Aries
- stone: Bloodstone
March's stone and what its name means
Aquamarine takes its name from the Latin for seawater, and it is the rare case of a stone that looks exactly like what it is called: pale blue-green, clear, and cold in the way shallow water is cold. It is March's birthstone, and the month's alternative is bloodstone, which is the same stone February offers and Aries claims as its own.
The two March stones are an argument in miniature. Aquamarine is the modern choice — quiet, wearable, easy to like — while bloodstone is the ancient one, spotted green and red, carried by people who expected trouble. A March birth gives you both options and no obvious way to choose between them except temperament.
Because both stones belong to March and to neighboring signs, this month's shelf overlaps more than most. Aquamarine is also Pisces's recorded stone; bloodstone is Aries's. In the traditional system that is not a conflict but a description of where March sits: at the hinge where winter's last sign hands over to the first sign of the new year.
What aquamarine has been worn for
The recorded qualities are peace, courage, intuition and trust, and the second of those carries the oldest history. Aquamarine was the sailor's stone: it was carried for safe passage, given to people leaving on long journeys, and kept aboard ships as a matter of course. A stone for the person who is about to be a long way from home is a stone about courage, however calm it looks.
The peace it is credited with is not the peace of rest — it is the settled nerves of someone who has decided to go anyway. The old sources describe aquamarine as steadying rather than soothing, which is a distinction worth keeping if you are choosing between it and amethyst.
Intuition and trust round out the list, and they are the two the Eastern reading emphasizes most, since water in that system belongs to depth and to what can be sensed rather than proved.
As with every stone on this calendar, the tradition claims companionship rather than power. Aquamarine is described as something carried through a difficult crossing, not something that prevents the crossing from being difficult.
March's signs and their stones
Pisces finishes around the twentieth and its recorded stone is aquamarine, so anyone born in the first three weeks of March has the month and the sign naming the same mineral. The Pisces page holds the full portrait: mutable water, ruled by Neptune and Jupiter, imaginative and absorbent of atmosphere.
From the twentieth the month belongs to Aries, whose stone is bloodstone — which is also March's alternative. The Aries page carries that record: cardinal fire, ruled by Mars, built for beginnings and famously short on patience.
So March comes out unusually tidy: each of its two stones turns out to be one of its signs' recorded birthstones, which leaves anyone born in the month no contradiction to resolve.
If you were born on the boundary itself, the tradition suggests reading both signs' pages and taking the stone that describes the temperament you actually recognize. The old books treat that as a legitimate method, not a loophole.
Wearing aquamarine, and keeping it
Aquamarine is harder than amethyst and softer than garnet, which puts it in the practical middle: fine for a pendant or a pair of earrings, acceptable in a ring worn carefully, and not something to wear while moving furniture. It dislikes heat and prolonged sun, and the traditional care instruction is the same as for any beryl — mild soap, cool water, no steam and no ultrasonic bath.
The color is the reason people choose it, and the color is also what fades if it is neglected. Old jewelers kept aquamarine in a drawer rather than a window for exactly this reason, which is a strange fate for a stone named after the sea.
Bloodstone, the alternative, needs no care at all and was traditionally kept unpolished in a pocket, where it can be touched without consequence. If March is your month and you dislike blue, that is the honest alternative.
Around it on the calendar, February keeps amethyst and April keeps diamond — so aquamarine sits between a violet and a clear white, both of which make it look brighter than it is.
Common questions
What is the birthstone for March?＋
March's birthstone is aquamarine, the pale blue-green variety of beryl whose name means seawater. Bloodstone is the traditional alternative, a dark green stone with red flecks that March shares with February and with Aries. Aquamarine is the modern choice and the more wearable of the two; bloodstone comes from the older lists and was carried rather than set. March is unusual in that both of its stones are also the recorded birthstones of the two zodiac signs that share the month, which means anyone born here has a month stone and a sign stone that agree rather than compete.
What does aquamarine symbolize?＋
Peace, courage, intuition and trust, with courage carrying the longest history. Aquamarine was the sailor's stone — carried for safe passage, given to people setting out on long journeys, and kept on ships as a matter of routine. The peace attached to it is the steadiness of someone who has decided to go despite the risk, rather than the calm of staying home. In the Eastern reading the same stone is tied to water as the element of depth and intuition. The tradition does not claim the stone prevents difficulty; it describes it as something carried through a difficult crossing.
Which signs cover the month of March?＋
Pisces runs to about the twentieth of March and Aries takes the rest of the month. Pisces's recorded stone is aquamarine, which is also March's birthstone, and Aries is assigned bloodstone, which is March's alternative. That double overlap makes March the cleanest month in the whole calendar: whichever part of it you were born in, both assignments draw from the same two minerals. The Pisces and Aries pages linked above carry the full portraits for both, including how the tradition reads a birth that falls on the boundary between them.
The birthstone calendar
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