How the world's currencies got their names

A recent post on the Oxford Dictionary's OxfordWords blog explained the origins of the names of the world's most common currencies. In the slides below, find out where these everyday words come from.

Dollar

The dollar is the world's most common currency, used in the US, Australia, Canada, Fiji, New Zealand, and Singapore and elsewhere.

According to OxfordWords, the Flemish or Low German word "joachimsthal" referred to Joachim's Valley, where silver was once mined. Coins minted from this mine became "joachimsthaler," which was later shortened to "thaler" and which eventually morphed into "dollar."

Peso

"Peso" literally means "weight" in Spanish.

Lira

The Italian and Turkish "lira" come from the Latin word "libra," meaning "pound."

Mark

Before the euro, the Deutsche mark and the Finnish markka also draw their names from units of weight.

Rial

The Latin word "regalis," meaning "royal," is the origin for the Omani and Iranian "rial."

Similarly, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and Yemen all use a currency called the "riyal." Before the euro, Spain used "reals" as well.

Rand

Like the dollar, South Africa's rand comes from the Dutch name for the South African city Witwatersrand, an area rich in gold.

Chinese yuan, Japanese yen, and Korean won

The Chinese character "圓," meaning "round" or "round coin," is responsible for the name of the Chinese yuan, Japanese yen, and Korean won.

Crown

Many Scandinavian countries use a currency that derives from the Latin word "corona," meaning "crown."

Sweden's krona, Norway's krone, Denmark's krone, Iceland's króna, and the Estonian kroon (now replaced by the euro), and the Czech Republic's koruna all derive from the same Latin root.

Dinar

Jordan, Algeria, Serbia, and Kuwait all call their currency "dinar."

This is a pretty straightforward truncation of the Latin word "denarius," which was a silver coin used in ancient Rome.

Rupee

The Sanskrit word for wrought silver is "rupya," which lends its name to the Indian and Pakistani rupee, as well as Indonesia's rupiah.

Pound

The British pound is derived from the Latin word "poundus" meaning "weight."

Egypt, Lebanon, South Sudan, Sudan, and Syria call their currency pound.

Ruble

Russia's and Belarus' ruble are named after a measure of weight for silver.

Zloty

"Zloty" is the Polish word for "golden."

Forint

The Hungarian forint comes from the Italian word "fiorino," a gold coin from Florence.

The fiorino had a flower, or "fiore" in Italian, stamped on it.

Ringgit

When coins were minted in precious metals, thieves would shave off small portions of the metal to create new coins.

To combat this, countries began minting coins with jagged edges.

The Malaysian word for jagged is "ringgit," the name of the currency.

Source

In those old days king's approval needed for minting coins. So he control the Money supply. Yet when coins get into the hands of Smiths ( iron smith, Gold smith) they peel off the edges and after doing so for dozen of coins he mint a one himself.

Kings added ridges or jagged edges to prevent this peeling off...Take any coin issued before 2000s and run your finger nail in the edges. You feel the ridges that cannot be copied.


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Chinese made a hole in mid of coins so you can insert a thread and tie a bunch of coins together. Chinese were far traveling vendors for ages.

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Coins represent and advanced version of Commodity Money. Commodity money means things that has dual usages. A specific purpose ( like knife to cut ) and as a medium of exchange.

Ran Masu is a fishing bait, a hooked wire used as a medium of exchange as well...

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Visit National Museum of Colombo and Dutch Museum of Fort. You can see and study different forms of coins. That include Chinese and Persian coins found in Sri Lanka.

Means we were trading with China and Other Nations for a long time...

Thanks Kith for the thread.