Why Is It Called 'Ruby'? — The Origin of the Name

Most programming languages get their names from academic papers, corporate boardrooms, or technical specifications. Ruby’s name came from a birthstone — a deeply personal, almost whimsical choice that perfectly reflects the language’s philosophy of prioritizing human happiness over machine convenience.

The Story

In 1995, Yukihiro “Matz” Matsumoto was a programmer in Japan who loved the power of Perl but disliked its “toolbox” feel. He wanted a language that felt more natural, more elegant — a language for humans, not computers. As he began building what would become Ruby, he needed a name.

The story goes that Matz was discussing the project with a colleague when he learned that the colleague’s birthstone was a ruby — a gemstone associated with passion, vitality, and July birthdays. The name stuck immediately. A ruby was precious, multifaceted, and beautiful — exactly what Matz wanted his language to be. The gemstone metaphor was perfect: like a cut ruby, the language would reveal different facets depending on how you looked at it, but always remain elegant and precious at its core.

There was also a strategic element to the name. Matz knew that the community had a “Pearl” language (Perl), so why not a “Ruby”? The names were complementary — both gemstones, both precious — but Ruby would be “Perl, but better.” It was a subtle competitive nod that the community immediately understood.

How It Evolved

Ruby spread slowly at first, gaining traction in Japan before making its way to the West. The name proved immediately memorable, and the gemstone theme became a defining characteristic of the community. The original Ruby logo was a simple gemstone shape, and later iterations refined the image into the distinctive red ruby cut we recognize today.

The birthstone origin story might have been apocryphal or simply one of several inspirations, but it captured something essential about Ruby’s philosophy. Matz has always emphasized that he designed Ruby to make programmers happy — to optimize for developer joy rather than machine efficiency. A language named after a precious gemstone, born from a personal connection with a colleague, communicated exactly that human-first approach.

As Ruby grew through the 2000s, powered by the Ruby on Rails web framework, the name became one of the most recognized in programming. The gemstone metaphor extended naturally to RubyGems (the package manager), where libraries are literally called “gems” — precious packages of code waiting to be discovered.

Did You Know?

The July birthstone connection means that Ruby is, in a sense, named after a specific month. Matz has occasionally mentioned that if the colleague had been born in April, we might have been programming in “Diamond” or if in December, “Turquoise.” The Ruby language is also one of the few programming languages named after a gemstone, alongside Opal (a Ruby-to-JavaScript compiler) and Topaz (an older Ruby implementation).

FAQ

Related Etymologies

Why Is It Called 'Perl'? Why Is It Called 'Python'? Why Is It Called 'Java'?