Traditional characters, simplified characters, pinyin, and what each name literally means — for all 22 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.
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.
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