Names that mean
jewel

Precious stones make one of the oldest naming traditions in the book. To call a child a jewel is to name her something rare, hard, and bright, and the practice reaches back long before the modern taste for gemstone names. The deepest root here is the pearl. Margaret comes from the Latin Margarita, which came from the Greek margarites, meaning pearl, a word Greek likely borrowed in turn from an Indo-Iranian source. Saint Margaret of Antioch carried the name across medieval Europe, and it put down enough roots to grow a whole family of forms. Maisie, Maggie, and the French Margot all trace back to that same pearl. So a girl named Maisie today carries an ancient jewel without any of the sparkle showing on the surface.

Other names take the stone straight, with no disguise. Jade, Ruby, Opal, Onyx, and Pearl are the gemstones themselves pressed into service as names, most of them rising in the late Victorian years when the fashion for jewel names took hold. Jade traces back to the Spanish piedra de ijada, the stone of the side, once thought to ease pains of the flank. Opal goes back to the Sanskrit upala, meaning jewel. Beryl, the pale green stone, entered use in the nineteenth century from the same mineral family. Jasper needs an honest note. As a gemstone name it fits the pattern, but the given name Jasper came by a separate road, from the Latin Gaspar and probably the Persian and Hebrew word for treasurer. Two meanings, one spelling.

The tradition also names the jewel in other tongues. Esmeralda is the Spanish and Portuguese word for emerald, ultimately from the Greek smaragdos, and Victor Hugo lent it lasting fame. Gemma is plainer and older, the Italian and Latin word for gem or precious stone, meaning nothing more and nothing less than the treasure itself. From the ancient pearl buried inside Margaret to the frank modern shine of Ruby and Opal, these names cover the full range of how people have kept a jewel close by giving it to a child.