Quick answer: Quartz in Chinese is 石英 (shí yīng) when you mean the mineral, and 水晶 (shuǐ jīng, “water essence”) when you mean crystal jewellery. Clear quartz is 白水晶 (bái shuǐ jīng), citrine 黃水晶 (huáng shuǐ jīng), tiger eye 虎眼石 (hǔ yǎn shí) and agate 瑪瑙 (mǎ nǎo).
Traditional characters, simplified characters, pinyin, and what each name literally means — for all 50 stones we work with.
We are a crystal studio in Taichung, Taiwan, and these are the names we use with suppliers and customers every day. So alongside the characters you also get the part a translation tool cannot give you: why each name is what it is, and where the Chinese and English names describe completely different things.
水晶 (shuǐ jīng) literally means “water essence” and is the general word for quartz. Most quartz varieties are just a colour word in front of it: 紫水晶 purple, 黃水晶 yellow, 粉水晶 pink. The trap for English speakers is clear quartz — Chinese calls it 白水晶, “white” crystal, not “clear”. Searching for 透明水晶 will not get you what you want.
Chinese mineral names usually end in 石 (stone), 晶 (crystal) or 寶 (treasure), and the choice is not random. 寶 marks gem-grade material — the same character as in 珠寶 (jewellery) — which is why aquamarine is 海藍寶 rather than 海藍石. When you see 寶 on a label, the seller is making a claim about grade, not just describing colour.
English calls anything with rutile needles “rutilated quartz”. Chinese splits it: 鈦晶 for thick, dense golden needles and 髮晶 for fine hair-like ones, and the price expectations are completely different. It runs the other way too — 超七 is also sold as 三輪骨幹水晶, a name with no English equivalent at all. If a translation feels like it is missing something, it usually is.
Literally “black shining stone”
曜 (yào) means “to shine / dazzle” and is the same character used in 日曜日 (Sunday). Chinese-speaking markets treat obsidian as a guardian stone worn mostly by men, so shops usually stock it in larger bead sizes (10–12mm) than the pastel stones.
Literally “silver shining stone”
Not a separate mineral — it is obsidian whose internal bubble layer throws a silver sheen. English-language shops usually file it under “silver sheen obsidian”, but in Chinese it gets its own two-character name, which is why searches for it rarely match English listings.
Literally “red agate”
瑪瑙 (mǎ nǎo) is the umbrella word for all agate; the colour goes in front. Red is the auspicious colour in Chinese culture, so 紅瑪瑙 is one of the most common gift stones — especially in a person’s 本命年 (běn mìng nián), the zodiac year matching their own sign.
Literally “tiger eye stone”
Also written 虎睛石 (hǔ jīng shí) — 睛 is the more literary word for the eyeball itself. Both names appear on Taiwanese and Hong Kong shop labels, so it is worth searching for both.
Literally “golden fortune stone”
A trade name rather than a mineralogical one, borrowed from Japanese 金運 (kin-un, “money luck”) and adopted across Taiwan and Hong Kong. There is no established English equivalent, which is why English searches for it return almost nothing.
Literally “titanium crystal”
In English everything with rutile needles is “rutilated quartz”. Chinese splits it by grade: 鈦晶 is reserved for thick, dense, distinctly golden needles, while thinner needles are 髮晶 (see below). The two carry very different price expectations — calling thin-needle stock 鈦晶 is a known mislabelling in the trade.
Literally “hair crystal”
Named for needles as fine as strands of hair. Note the simplified form: 髮 (hair) and 發 (to send out) both collapse into 发, so simplified-Chinese searches for 发晶 are unavoidably ambiguous — one reason traditional-character sources are often clearer on this stone.
Literally “green ghost”
幽靈 literally means “ghost / phantom” — the inclusions look like a smaller crystal haunting the inside of a larger one. In Chinese-speaking business circles it is the classic 事業 (career) gift stone, a positioning it simply does not have in Western crystal culture.
Literally “blue ghost”
The blue counterpart, coloured by included dumortierite. Searched far more heavily in Hong Kong and Malaysia than in the West — if you search “blue phantom quartz” in English you will find a fraction of what 藍幽靈 / 蓝幽灵 returns.
Literally “super seven”
A direct calque of the English name. Also sold as 三輪骨幹水晶 (sān lún gǔ gàn shuǐ jīng, “three-wheel skeletal quartz”), a name with no English equivalent at all — the same material under two naming systems.
Literally “jade-green seal”
One of the few crystal names that is not descriptive: 璽 is the character for an imperial seal, and the name dates to the Qing dynasty court, where tourmaline was a favoured stone. It is pure phonetic-and-prestige naming, which is why the literal reading tells you nothing about the colour.
Literally “white crystal”
Chinese calls it white, not clear — a small but constant translation trap. 水晶 (shuǐ jīng, “water essence”) is the general word for quartz, and every quartz variety is built on it: 紫水晶 purple, 黃水晶 yellow, 粉水晶 pink.
Literally “purple crystal”
Colour word plus 水晶. Traditionally associated with study and clear thinking in Chinese-speaking markets, so it is a common gift for students sitting entrance exams — a use case Western sources rarely mention.
Literally “yellow crystal”
Yellow and gold are the wealth colours in Chinese custom, making 黃水晶 the standard 招財 (zhāo cái, “inviting wealth”) stone. Note that in Chinese-language shops the term covers heat-treated material as well, so it is worth asking whether a piece is 天然 (natural) or 加熱 (heated).
Literally “pink crystal”
Also called 芙蓉晶 (fú róng jīng, “hibiscus crystal”), the more poetic older name still used in Hong Kong. Both names appear in the trade; 粉水晶 is the everyday term in Taiwan.
Literally “strawberry crystal”
A modern name, coined for the look rather than inherited from classical texts — which is why it maps cleanly onto the English one. The material sold under this name varies a lot, so ask what the inclusions actually are.
Literally “sea-blue treasure”
寶 (bǎo, “treasure”) marks it as a gemstone rather than a common quartz — the same character in 珠寶 (jewellery). Chinese naming quietly encodes the value tier: stones ending in 石 or 晶 sit below those ending in 寶.
Literally “Morgan stone (phonetic)”
摩根 is simply the transliteration of “Morgan” — the banker J. P. Morgan, after whom the stone was named. Like most minerals named after people, Chinese keeps the sound and appends 石 (stone).
Literally “moonlight stone”
A rare case where the Chinese and English names match exactly. Strongly associated with the 中秋 (Mid-Autumn) festival period in gift-giving, so demand is seasonal in a way it is not in Western markets.
Literally “Milky Way stone”
天河 is the Chinese name for the Milky Way — literally “sky river”. The Chinese name refers to the colour and has nothing to do with the Amazon river that the English name comes from, so the two names describe completely different images.
Literally “Peter stone (phonetic)”
彼得 is the standard Chinese transliteration of the name “Peter”, after Sid Pieters who found it. Same pattern as 摩根石: sound plus 石.
Literally “terahertz (phonetic, with a titanium character)”
赫茲 is the transliteration of “hertz” (as in the frequency unit), and 鈦 means titanium. Searched heavily in Hong Kong — 鈦赫茲左右手 (“which hand”) and 鈦赫茲禁忌 (“taboos”) are both live queries there, which tells you the questions buyers actually have about it.
Literally “titanium crystal”
English lumps all of this under “rutilated quartz”; Chinese splits it by needle thickness and charges accordingly. 鈦晶 is the thick, dense, metallic-gold grade — the top tier — while fine hair-like needles are 金髮晶. Nobody in the trade uses 鈦晶 loosely: call thin-needle material 鈦晶 in a Taiwanese shop and you will be corrected.
Literally “Labrador stone (phonetic 拉長 ≈ “Labra-”)”
The name is a straight transliteration of Labrador, where it was first found, so the characters carry no meaning of their own. Note the trade split: the flashy blue-sheen material is sold as 拉長石, but the pale, near-transparent grade is often labelled 月光石 (moonstone) instead — the two names describe market grade here, not strictly mineralogy.
Literally “black jade-green talisman stone”
碧璽 is Qing-dynasty court vocabulary — 碧 is jade-green and 璽 is the character for an imperial seal, which is why the name sounds far grander than “tourmaline”. Older Taiwanese sellers still say 電氣石 (“electric stone”, from its pyroelectricity) for industrial-grade material, so the two names on a label usually signal two different price tiers.
Literally “red-banded stone”
Named for the banding, not the mineral: 紋 means the stripe pattern. Chinese-speaking buyers grade it almost entirely on how clean and even the pink is, and the banded “bacon” pattern that Western collectors prize actually sells for less here — the same stone, opposite taste.
Literally “grape stone”
English honours the man who catalogued it (Colonel von Prehn); Chinese describes what it looks like — the botryoidal clusters really do resemble a bunch of green grapes. This is the clearest example of the two naming systems on this page: one names a person, the other names a picture.
Literally “firefly stone”
螢 is the character for firefly, chosen because the mineral glows under UV light — the same root idea as the English word “fluorescence”, which was in fact named after fluorite. Two languages, same observation, arrived at independently.
Literally “sun stone”
A rare case where the Chinese and English names match exactly. Worth knowing: in Chinese-speaking shops 太陽石 is very often sold as a pair with 月光石 (moonstone) — sun and moon, a set framing that Western sellers rarely use but that drives a lot of gift purchases here.
Literally “tea crystal”
Named after the colour of brewed tea, not smoke. You will also see 煙晶 (“smoke crystal”) — most Taiwanese sellers use 茶晶 for the warmer brown material and 煙晶 for the greyer, more translucent kind, though the line is not strict and the two names are frequently used interchangeably.
Literally “purple-yellow crystal”
English fuses the two mineral names (amethyst + citrine); Chinese simply states the two colours. Because the value here depends on how cleanly the purple and yellow zones divide, sellers describe a piece by the boundary — 陰陽分明 (“clearly split”) is the phrase used for the grade buyers pay up for.
Literally “pomegranate stone”
Both languages landed on the same fruit — “garnet” traces back to Latin granatum (pomegranate) — but Chinese buyers took it further and made it the standard first bracelet given to young women, usually in 3–4mm beads worn several strands at once. Ask for garnet in Taiwan and you will be shown the small beads by default.
Literally “blue-gold stone”
The 金 (gold) in the name is the pyrite flecks, and it is a grading term: too few and the stone looks flat, too many and it is called 金太多 (“too much gold”) and discounted. Chinese buyers want an even scatter — the opposite of the Western market, where a solid deep blue with no pyrite often commands the premium.
Literally “green Dongling (a place name)”
東陵 is a transliteration route through “aventurine” rather than a real Chinese place, and it is one of the few stone names most Taiwanese sellers cannot explain. Practical note: it is the standard budget green in this market, and shops will often offer it to a customer who asks for 綠幽靈 (green phantom) but balks at the price.
Literally “green pine stone”
松 (pine) refers to the way rough turquoise forms in clustered nodules resembling pine cones. The Chinese market grades it by density rather than colour — 高瓷 (“high porcelain”, meaning hard and glossy enough to look glazed) is the term to know, and it matters more to price here than the exact shade of blue.
Literally “peacock stone”
Named for the banded green that mirrors a peacock’s tail. One practical warning that Chinese sources give more prominently than English ones: 孔雀石怕酸怕汗 — it reacts to acid and sweat, so local sellers routinely tell customers to take it off before exercise, and reputable shops seal the beads.
Literally “blue crystal stone”
A plain descriptive name, but the stone has a property worth knowing before buying: its hardness differs sharply depending on the direction you scratch it (roughly 4.5 along one axis, 7 across). Taiwanese sellers summarise this as 一軟一硬 (“soft one way, hard the other”) and it is why kyanite bracelets are usually strung with rounded, not faceted, beads.
Literally “honey wax”
Chinese splits what English calls amber into two commercial names: 琥珀 for the transparent material and 蜜蠟 for the opaque, honey-coloured kind — and in this market 蜜蠟 is the one that carries prestige and price. Asking for 琥珀 when you mean the creamy opaque beads will get you shown the wrong tray.
Literally “treasured bead”
珠 is the same character used for every bead on this site — a bracelet bead is a 珠子 — so “pearl” in Chinese literally reads as “the precious bead”, the archetype all other beads are named after. That is why 珠寶 (bead + treasure) became the general word for jewellery.
Literally “vermilion sand”
The character 硃 is the specific red of imperial vermilion ink — the same pigment used to mark temple talismans, which is where its ceremonial role in Chinese practice comes from. Buyer’s note: almost everything sold as a 硃砂 bracelet today is cinnabar powder set in resin, not solid mineral, and honest sellers will say so unprompted.
Literally “southern red agate”
“Southern” means Yunnan and Sichuan, the source regions — a name that encodes provenance, with no English equivalent at all. The grade vocabulary is equally untranslatable: 柿子紅 (“persimmon red”, dense opaque orange-red) sits at the top, 錦紅 next, and the price gap between them is several-fold.
Literally “Hotan jade (a place in Xinjiang)”
Note that 玉 (jade) is a cultural category in Chinese, not a mineral one — it covers both nephrite and, colloquially, jadeite, and carries a weight closer to “heirloom material” than to any English gem name. 羊脂白 (“mutton-fat white”) is the grade term buyers chase, describing a specific warm, slightly oily white.
Literally “purple lithium mica”
The Chinese name states the chemistry outright — lithium plus mica — which is unusual for a decorative stone here, and it is a useful tell: 雲母 (mica) means the material is soft and layered, so these beads scratch easily and are usually sold at a lower price point than similar-looking purple stones.
Literally “purple lithium spodumene”
English honours the gemmologist George Kunz; Chinese again names the mineral family (鋰輝石, spodumene). Worth knowing before you buy: the pink can fade with prolonged strong light, and Taiwanese sellers say 怕曬 (“afraid of sun exposure”) as standard care advice.
Literally “green jade marrow”
玉髓 (“jade marrow”) is the Chinese family name for all chalcedony — a vivid image of something formed inside stone. In this market it is also widely called 澳洲玉 (“Australian jade”) after the main source, and that second name is the one you will hear in shops even though it is not jade at all.
Literally “sea-pattern stone”
English uses a coined name (from Larissa + mar, the daughter of the man who popularised it); Chinese describes the white-on-blue pattern that looks like sea foam. Since it is found only in one part of the Dominican Republic, Chinese-speaking sellers price it as an import rarity rather than by the usual grading vocabulary.
Literally “gold shining stone”
Same 曜 (shine) character as plain 黑曜石, with 金 marking the golden sheen that appears when you tilt it. Buyer’s note that Chinese sellers stress: the sheen must be visible on every bead of the strand — a bracelet where only half the beads flash is a lower grade and should be priced as one.
Literally “black hair crystal”
髮 is the character for hair on your head, and the whole 髮晶 family is named for those needle inclusions. The Chinese market wears the colours differently by intent: 金髮晶 (gold) is the one bought for business occasions, 黑髮晶 for protection, and it is normal to be asked which you want before being shown any stock.
Literally “grey moonlight”
Chinese drops the 石 (stone) here and just says “grey moonlight”, which is how the trade talks about the whole moonstone family — 藍月光 (blue), 灰月光 (grey), 橙月光 (orange). The adjective is doing the grading: blue sheen sits at the top of that ladder, and the gap in price is substantial.
Literally “skeleton / backbone crystal”
This one has no English name at all — it is a Chinese-market category for quartz grown around a mineral core, so the crystal appears to have a “skeleton” inside. You will see 黑金骨幹 and 星輝骨幹 as sub-names, and 超七 (Super Seven) is also sold as 三輪骨幹. If an English listing calls it “Super Seven”, the Chinese seller may be describing something narrower.
In Chinese practice, stones are not chosen by name or colour — they are chosen against a person's birth chart. Enter your birth date and our system casts the Four Pillars (八字, bā zì), works out which of the five elements your chart is short of, and builds a bracelet around that. Every bead comes with a written reason.
Worldwide SF Express · Hong Kong 1–2 days · Singapore & Malaysia 2–5 days
Ordering from Singapore, Malaysia or Hong Kong? Local buying guides: Singapore · Malaysia · Hong Kong
Build a bracelet from your birth chart: enter your birth date, see your five elements, and we hand-string the matching beads in Taichung. How it works: Chinese birth chart (BaZi) bracelet · feng shui bracelet
