Baht Until the 1940s the Thai currency was known as the tical. A bahtwas a unit of weight of around 15g, the equivalent in silver of one tical.
Bolivar Venezuela’s currency takes its name from Simon Bolivar, a Venezulean known as “El Libertador” who led the defeat of Spanish colonialism in the 19th century, gaining independence for his own country as well as Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Panama and Peru. Ecuador’s sucre is named after Antonio José de Sucre, also an independence leader and one of Bolivar’s closest friends.
Crown The French gold “denier à la couronne” was issued by Philip of Valois in about 1339
and featured a large embossed crown. The name was adopted by a slew of
countries including the Czech Republic (koruna), Denmark
(krone), Estonia (kroon), Iceland (króna), Norway (krone), Sweden (krona).
Dinar Its origin dates back to the most widely used Roman coin, the denarius. The silver coin’s name means
“containing ten” as it originally equalled ten copper as. It survives as the denar in Macedonia and dinar in Algeria, Bahrain, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Tunisia and Serbia Dollar The name is derived from that of the historic currencies of Bohemia, the tolar, and Germany’s thaler.
The name thaler(from the German thal, meaning
“valley”) itself derives from the guldengroschenor “great gulden”, a silver coin equal in value to a gold gulden and minted from the silver mined at Joachimsthal in Bohemia. The word “dollar” was in use in English for the thaler for about 200 years before America adopted the term. Spanish dollars, or “pieces of eight”, were in
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circulation in Spain’s colonies in the Americas in the 18th century. This and the Maria Theresa Thaler were both in wide use before the American revolution and lent their name to the country’s new currency.
Drachma The Greek currency (now superseded by the euro) took its name currency from the verb “to grasp.”
The Arabic dirham’s name is also derived from the ancient drachma.
Dram The Armenian word for “money”.
Escudo Taken from the Portuguese (and Spanish) for
“shield” and originally Spanish coins decorated with the coat of arms of the king of Spain – the great shield of the house of Hapsburg. The doubloon was a coin originally worth two escudos.
Franc The name is said to derive from the Latin inscription francorum rex(“King of the Franks”) inscribed on gold coins first made during the reign of Jean le Bon (1350–64).
Guilder The name is taken from coins struck in Florence in the 13th century decorated with a lily, the florensus, derived from fiorino, Old Italian for flower. The Netherlands adopted the name gulden, short for gulden florijn(or golden florenus), of which guilder is a
corruption. The abbreviation fl or f remained in use. The currency survives in Aruba and the Netherlands Antilles.
Kina Papua New Guinea’s money takes its name from the kina shell, which was traditionally used as currency on the island.
Kuna The word means “marten” in Croatian, and is etymologically unrelated to the various currency names derived from the crown. It comes from the use of marten pelts as a trading commodity by medieval merchants.
Kwacha Zambia’s currency is taken from the county’s main language, Bemba. It means “dawn” and is taken
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from the country’s nationalist slogan “new dawn of freedom”.
Kwanza The official currency of Angola is named either after the Kwanza River or the Bantu word for “first”.
Leu Dutch thalers circulating in Romania and Moldova in the 17th century bearing the impression of a lion were widely known as lei(lions). A form of the name was kept as a generic term for money (though becoming the lev in Bulgaria).
Lira The Vatican City and Malta retain a currency with a name originating from the value of a troy pound (Latin libra) of high purity silver. Turkey’s lira shares the same root.
Manat In Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan the currency derives its name from Manah, a goddess of fate and destiny in pre-Islamic Arabia.
Mark An archaic unit of weight for precious metal in Europe equal to eight troy ounces. Germany’s mark has been replaced by the euro but Bosnia has its marka and Finland its markka.
Pataca Macau’s currency takes its name from a silver coin once popular in Asia, the Mexican eight realesor “pieces of eight”, known in Portuguese as the Pataca Mexicana.
Peseta Spain’s former currency takes its name from the Catalan word peceta, meaning “little piece”.
Peso The Spanish word for “weight”. The main colonial- era coin was worth eight reales(the “piece of eight”) and was later called the peso in Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Mexico, the Philippines and Uruguay.
Pound The term originates from the value of a troy
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pound weight of high purity silver. The symbol is based on a traditional capital “L” with a horizontal line through it, derived from the Latin word libra, meaning pound.
Sterling dates back to the reign of Henry II in the 12th century and is probably derived from Easterling silver, mined in the area of Germany of the same name. It was famed for the high quality of its silver, which was imported to Britain to form the basis of coinage at the time. Another explanation is that sterling silver’s hallmark featured a starling.
Pula In the Setswana language pula means “rain”, a scarce and valuable resource in Botswana.
Quetzal Named after the national bird of Guatemala.
Rand South Africa’s rand is named
after gold-mining area in Transvaal, short for Witwatersrand
Real Brazil’s money takes its name from the Portuguese and means “Royal currency”. The basic silver unit of Spanish America was the real until about 1860.
Ringgit Malaysia’s currency means “jagged” in Malay in reference to the serrated edges of Spanish silver dollars that circulated in the area.
Rouble The name is derived from the Russian word meaning “to chop”. Historically, a ruble was a piece of silver chopped off an ingot.
Rupee India’s currency takes its name from a Sanskrit word, rupyah, meaning “wrought silver”.
Yen See Yuan.
Yuan China’s currency is taken from the word meaning
“round object” in Chinese. Japan’s yen is taken from the same source.
Zloty Poland’s currency means “golden” in Polish.
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