List of nicknames for coins, worldwide

There is a common practice for giving a nickname to a common coin. Here is a start for a list, please share other nicknames you know of, preferably mentioning the origin of the nickname. When additions come, I'll add them to this list.
 

Argentina, source: https://ventureoutspanish.com/money-talk-in-argentina/

1 peso: mango
10 pesos: diego

100 pesos: gamba

1000 pesos: luca

1,000,000 pesos: palo

Austria:
Due to international trade the Maria Theresia Thaler N#7393 obtained many nicknames:
1) in general in the Gulf as "the fat lady dollar" as it is still known today.
2) In Egypt: "Rial Nimsawi" - the German thaler, may relate to Austrians speaking German
3) Around the Red Sea: "Rial Kabir" - the big thaler
4) in Yemen: "Qirsh HaDsar" - the strong Piaster
5) in Yemen: "Qirsh Fransi" - the French Piaster, may relate to trade with the French
6) in Constaninople: "Qara Qirsh" - the black piaster
7) in Sudan: "Rial-abu- Nukta" - the father of points
8) in Somalia: "Shariq qirsh as-Suez al-fransiyy" - Eastern Piaster of French Suez
9) in Zanzibar. "Januairio" - January (??? - no clue why?)
10) in Suaheli: "Reali Meosi" - black thaler
11) in Abessinia: "Rial Abu Tair" - father of birds
12) in Khartoum: "Qirsh Rial Kusheriyy" - Piaster of birds
13) in Hungary: "A Nagyanya" - the great grandma
source: "Gábor Fazekas: Mária Terézia Tallér 1780"

Australia:
Shilling: deener

Belgium:

5 francs: knak, Flemish for 5 or 5 frank coin, mentioned in the online explanation for the origin of knaak (2½ gulden Netherlands)
20 francs: gouden Leopold (gold Leopold), refering to kings Leopold I and Leopold II

Canada, English nicknames:

5 cents silver: fish scale, due to their tiny size, alike US 3 cents

25 cents note: shinplaster, a term used in the U.S. and Australia for banknotes with little value
1 dollar: loonie, there is a loon (type of water bird) on the coin

2 dollars: toonie, a mix of two and loonie
Canada, Quebec nicknames:
25 cents: 30 sous, related to the pre 1760 days of a pound/livre/dollar being divided in 120 sous
50 cents silver: écu 
 

Czechoslovakia/Czech Republic

1 koruna: kačka (duck), due to the first consonants being kč, just like Kč is short for Koruna československá (Czechoslovakian crown), as well as a newly minted koruna having the same colour as a (quite round) baby duckling
 5 korun: búra/bůra/búro (storm), it also means 5 year prison term and in slang 5 goals scored, or a 5 for a failed exam (grades from 1 to 10, 6 passes), but for money ‘bor’ stems from the German ‘bar’ in ‘Bargeld’ (cash)

10 korun: pět (five), stemming from 10 korun = 5 gulden after the 1892 currency change from gulden to koruna
100 korun: kilo (kilo), due to crooks and swindlers using code language in order not to be understood, this became common use later, but it is not clear why ‘kilo’ was chosen as a code word

1000 korun: litr (liter), with 1 liter = 1000 milliliter similar to ‘litr korun’ = 1000 korun, initially again due to crooks using code language

1000 korun: tac (platter), due to the large size of the banknotes 

El Salvador
1 colón: suegra (mother in law), N#4055 Christopher Columbus looking like a woman

France:
1 sol: sou, later 1 franc = 20 sou, hence 5 centimes was named sou

5 centimes with hole: sou, reusing the old nickname
25 centimes with hole: 5 sous

Germany:
Prussia: 1/6 thaler: Hundesechsteltaler, coin with details resembling two dogs (see: N#6822)

5 Pfennig: Sechser (sechs meaning six), remnant of the old duodecimal system

10 Pfennig, in duedecimal system 12 pfennig, even used for 10 Euro cents today: Groschen, stems from 1 Taler (Thaler) = 24 Groschen

Great Britain: see United Kingdom

India:
25 paisa: 4 annas, refering to the old rupee equaling 16 annas

50 paisa: 8 annas, see 25 paisa

Netherlands:
1 schelling (6 stuivers): scheepjesschelling, refering to the ship on the coin, scheepje meaning little ship
½ cent: halfje, refering to halve (half), extention ‘-je’ is Dutch for 'little'
5 cents: stuiver, refering to the historical stuiver coin with a value of 8 duit
10 cents: dubbeltje (in short duppie), refering to ‘dubbele stuiver’ (double  stuiver)
25 cents: kwartje, a quarter of a gulden
1 gulden: florijn, the first guilder (according to what I found on internet) was named florijn, after the lily of Florence in the shield, but I'm not sure which one this refers to. The first gulden was made of gold, hence the name gulden, in 1521. 
1 gulden: piek, starting late 17th century, guilder coins depicted a virgin holding a lance (lans, speer  or piek in Dutch)
2½ gulden: rijksdaalder (in short riks), refering to the historical daalder, after decimalization 1 daalder obtained the value 1½ gulden
2½ gulden: knaak, the origin of this word is not known for sure, it may relate to German local language words Knoek or Kneek, or to the Flemish word knak (see Belgium)
5 gulden: gouden vijfje, golden 5 gulden coin, vijfje refering to vijf (five), extention ‘-je’ is Dutch for 'little'
10 gulden: gouden tientje, golden 10 gulden coin, tientje refering to tien (ten), extention ‘-je’ is Dutch for ‘little’
Some lesser used nicknames as well as names for banknotes are mentioned here: http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nederlandse_gulden and https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Munt_(betaalmiddel)

Netherlands Antilles
½ cent: cen chikito, meaning little cent
1 cent: cen grandi, meaninf large cent
2½ cents: un (1) plaka
5 cents: sepelin/dos (2) plaka
10 cents: debchi/ kuater (4) plaka
25 cents: diez (10) plaka
50 cents: yotin
100 cents/gulden: heldu/florin, heldu stems from gulden; florin stems from florijn, see Netherlands 1 gulden
2½ gulden or florin: fuerte/dollar

Portugal

100 réis: tostão, already used for the 16th century silver coin
10 centavos: tostão, stemming from the 100 réis nickname, also used for larger amounts, like 25 tostões instead of 2,5 escudos
1000 escudos note: conto, originally used for larger sums of money, due to inflation it gained common use

Russia, some of these date centuries back, some have survived to this day:
1/4 kopeks: polushka

½ kopeks: denga, originating from Tatar meaning ‘small silver coin’ (source: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denga)

2 kopeks: grosh (up to 19th century; after Poland became part of the Russian Empire, 1 zloty = 15 kopeks and grosh (1/30 zloty) became 1/2 kopek), other names: semishnik, semitka, dvushka
3 kopeks: altyn, trioshnik
5 kopeks: pyatak/pyatachok
10 kopeks: grivennik
20 kopeks: dvukhgrivennyi/dvukhgrivennik
25 kopeks: chetvertak/polupoltinnik
50 kopeks: poltinnik
1 rubles: tselkovyi
10 rubles: chervonets

Spain
1 peseta: rubia, translates as blonde, probably refering to the colour of a newly minted copper coin

5 pesetas: duro, after the down size that became durito (small duro)
25 pesetas: 5 duros
100 pesetas: doblón, relates to the newly minted brass coin colour, resembling the old doblón gold coin

Syria:

2½ qirsh: نص فرنك (nasu firank) (half a franc): relating to the French Franc

5 qirsh: فرنك (firink) (franc): relating to the French Franc

10 qirsh: فرنكين (frinkin) (2 francs): relating to the French Franc

25 qirsh: ربع ليرة (rubue lira) (quarter lira): the Lira being the Syrian Pound
50 qirsh: نصف ليرة (nisf lira) (half lira): the Lira being the Syrian Pound

Sweden:

1 krona note 1874 to 1941: kotia (litterally: cow ten), relating to cheating in trade of cows, hiding 1 or 2 1 krona note(s)  under a 10 kronor not on top with the same colour
1 krona: bagare/bagis (baker), though not as common as it used to be
1 krona: spänn (buckle),  pix, riksdaler (currency prior 1873), used in plural like ‘25 spänn for a coke’ or ‘I paid 400 riksdaler for this shirt’
10 kronor coin: guldpeng (golden coin), because of it's colour
20 kronor note: Selma (after Selma Lagerlöf who is portrayed on the front)
1000 kronor note 1952-1973: Lakan (sheet), lök (onion) or papp (paperboard), due to the A4 paper size
1000 kronor note 1976-1988: lax (salmon), due to the pink colour

United Kingdom:

3 Pence: Thrup'ny bit
4 Pence, silver: Joey,  sometimes used for the three pence e.g. threepenny joey
6 Pence: Tanner, named after the designer John S. Tanner. Dickens uses the term in Martin Chuzzlewit (xxxvii).

1 Shilling: Bob, Dickens used the term in Pickwick Papers.

2 Shillings [Florin]: Two-bob bit

5 Shillings [Crown]: Five bob

1 Pound: Quid, probably comes from the Latin 'quid pro quo' - 'something exchanged for something else'
low grade Henry VIII silver coinage: copper noses, even after little circulation the nose of the king on these coins obtained a copper colour
A long list of money related slang: https://www.learnenglish.de/slang/moneyslang.html

United States of America:
1 cent: penny (originating from the British penny)

3 cents, low grade silver: trimes or fish scales (due to their small size, alike Canadian 5 cents silver)
5 cents: nickel (refering to the material of 5 cents coins in the time of silver coinage)
10 cents: dime (originating from the French term disme (in modern French: dîme), meaning one tenth
25 cents: two bits, the US$ originally was based on the Spanish dollar, which was divided into 8 real or bits, hence ¼ dollar equals two bits
25 cents: quarter (a quarter of a dollar)
1 dollar: buck
1 dollar: Carter quarter or J.C. penny, the Susan B. Anthony dollars were authorized by a law signed by President Jimmy Carter on October 2, 1978, they became impopular due to their size being just a bit larger than the regular quarter
100 dollar note: Benjamin, with Benjamin Franklin on the banknote

Venezuela:
5 cents: Puya

12.5 céntimos: Locha
25 céntimos: Medio

50 céntimos: Real

5 Bolivares: Fuerte
100 Bolivares note: marron, refering to the brown colour
500 Bolivares note: orquidea (orchid), relating to the orchids on that banknote

Yugoslavia

1 dinar: kinta, stemming from qindar (1/100 Albanian lek), what Roma and Albanian beggers asked for in the period between WWI and WWII

10 dinar note 1920: banka, due to the big letters  БАНКА/BANKA N#298984

100 dinar: glava (head), due to the head in the watermark of Miloš Obrenović  prince of Serbia, or later Alexander I, King of the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes N#278549 N#206245

100 dinar: konj (horse in Slovenian), due to the Equestrian statue "Peace" by Antun Augustinčić, United Nations garden, New York, on N#206237

1000 dinar: сом/som (catfish), which may stem from the Uzbek word so'm (sum), later used to name the Uzbekistan currency
 

U.K.: 

3 Pence: Thrup'ny bit [silver version: Joey] 
6 Pence: Tanner 

1 Shilling: Bob 

2 Shillings [Florin]: Two-bob bit 

5 Shillings [Crown]: Five bob 

1 Pound: Quid 

 I am sure there were others, but in the meantime a list from the Royal Mint 

https://www.royalmint.com/stories/collect/coin-nicknames/ 

An old thread with the same topic (LINK)

Idolenz

An old thread with the same topic (LINK)

Thanks! When I started this thread I searched for existing ones, but didn't find any…
I decided to update mine with all the nicknames mentioned in the link you shared, I partially did so already, including some corrections and additions.
When I'm finished, I'll drop a note in that link.

In the initial post in that thread a link is mentioned that unfortunately no longer works. I'm wondering now wether anyone made a copy.

A quarter dollar in the US is still called ‘two  bits’ by some older people.

In Portugal, the 10 centavos coin was popularly called tostão (pl. tostões). The name was originally used for the 16th century silver coin with the value of 100 réis. Since this denomination was still used at the time of the Portuguese monetary reform in 1910.                 (10 000 réis=1 escudo=100 centavos), the new  10 centavos coin remained tostão. As far as I know, especially the older generation of Portuguese used this name well into the second half of the 20th century. Interestingly, it was customary to use tostão even for larger sums, like 25 tostões instead of 2,5 escudos.

The other unofficial name for Portuguese money, although less informal, was conto for 1000 escudos. It was originally used in budgets and other contexts involving large sums of money, but with the inflation, it became common in everyday transactions. 

More info on Portuguese Wikipedia

https://pt.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Escudo_português

Canada $2 twony or toony, not sure how they spell that…

good old pnightengale! I miss him on the forum.

In Yugoslavia, 10 Dinars coin was popularly called “banka” 

redsmithstudios

 

good old pnightingale! I miss him on the forum.

Yes, me too :(

E. Timmermans

3 cents, low grade silver: trimes or fish scales (due to their small size, alike Canadian 5 cents silver)

100 dollar note: Benjamin, with Benjamin Franklin on the banknote

I didn’t know that the three cent had nicknames (I think I might start calling it a trime)

As for the banknotes, I’m pretty sure each US banknote has the president on it as its nickname, though I do know that people just call them by their value (ones, fives, tens, etc.)

Dejan

In Yugoslavia, 10 Dinars coin was popularly called “banka” 

Thank you!
I assume you refer to the large one: N#839
Do you know of any context why it was called so? Maybe you can google a relevant website on this in for example Croatian or Serbian. From Croatian it simply translates as bank, not enough to find a relevant mentioning in English…

Czechia.

Folk - commonly colloquial - name for money. Not always and not everyone, but often and daily.

Koruna- ( one crown)- and also popularly:

,, kačka,, (duck) -they start with the same letter, and in the abbreviation Kč (Czech crown), you simply can't help but see the duck. And both - the little ducks and the coins - are round and yellow. It's from the old Czechoslovak crowns that they had that color.

Pět korun (five crowns):

Búro/ bůra

The ,bůro/ búra ,,is not only associated with money, but also with a 5-year prison sentence, in sports slang it means 5 goals scored and in school it is a sign of insufficient (i.e. anchovies, balls – or a grade of 5). But in financial language we probably adopted the terms storm/storm from German. "Bar" in it is an abbreviation of the word "bargeld" ("bar" means bare and "geld" money, i.e. precisely "cash money"). The term "bor" was then used by the scum to mean "money for wood" and "velkej bůr" was used for fifty crowns. Over time, the words were distorted into today's "bůra" as an expression for five crowns.

Deset korun ( ten crowns). popularly:

In this case, we have to go against the flow of time and go back to 1892, when the currency reform took place and we stopped paying in gulden. The korunas came, for which this exchange rate applied: 1 gulden was then equal to 2 korunas. And the ten-koruna was therefore worth five guldens and the simple and practical nickname "five" was adopted for it.

Sto korun( one hundred crowns)

The popular greeting is "kilo".

Even in this case, we have to look to the very edge of society, among crooks and swindlers of all kinds. They cunningly use words in a different context so that no one else knows what they are actually talking about and their plans remain, so to speak, secret. And in this way, the term kilo gradually came into use for one hundred crowns. Anyone who would foolishly look for a connection in mathematics could only say that 1 kilogram has 100 decagrams.

Tisíc korun ( one thousand crowns)

Litr- (  liter )Here we can make do with a simple deduction, after all, 1000 CZK has the same number of units – i.e. crowns – as a liter has milliliters.

and sometimes the word "Tac" is also used, from the word "platter" was a thousand crowns in cash. And the banknote itself was so huge that it fit on an entire tray, a plate.

Milion ( million) 

Mega.   

There are several common names for a million crowns – in addition to mega, there are also ball or melon. They all start with the letter M and are beautifully round. However, the most accurate interpretation is offered by the Greek, in which “mega” denotes the power of 106, i.e. a million – the prefix μέγας means large. And a million is a large number.

Melón.

And sometimes watermelon too, because the letters match.

Ivan

E. Timmermans

Dejan

In Yugoslavia, 10 Dinars coin was popularly called “banka” 

Thank you!
I assume you refer to the large one: N#839

Not that one; name is much older. Here are some nicknames I could trace:

1 Dinar – “KINTA” – the name originates from between two World Wars, when there were a lot of Albanian and Roma (Gypsy) beggars in Belgrade, asking bypasses for a Qindar (1/100 of Albanian Lek).

10 Dinars – “BANKA” – from large word “banka” on 10 Dinars note from the Kingdom of SHS.

100 Dinara – “GLAVA” (Head) – on 100 Dinars notes from 1920 & 1929, head of the ruler was on the watermark, or (later) “KONJ” (Equestrian statue "Peace" by Antun Augustinčić in the garden of United Nations, New York, on the 1965-1986 100 Dinars note).

1000 Dinara – “SOM” (Catfish) – while not certain, probable source is from Turkish “Som/Sum”, currency still in use in Uzbekistan.

Thank you MIMAEL and Dejan for your information, I updated to the list in top message shortly after you both sent it!
Today I spoke to people from Syria now living in my country. The father of the family told about the nick names of the smaller change, for which it is interesting that a reference was made to the French Franc, due to Syria being under French rule for 23 years.
I added the following to the list:
Syria:

2½ qirsh: نص فرنك (nasu firank) (half a franc): relating to the French Franc

5 qirsh: فرنك (firink) (franc): relating to the French Franc

10 qirsh: فرنكين (frinkin) (2 francs): relating to the French Franc

25 qirsh: ربع ليرة (rubue lira) (quarter lira): the Lira being the Syrian Pound
50 qirsh: نصف ليرة (nisf lira) (half lira): the Lira being the Syrian Pound

Looking through your list, I did not find the Russian name denga, referring to ½ kopeck.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denga

By the way, is there any particular reason why the Czech part of your list also includes the Great Moravia? I mean, this state only existed for a short time during the 9th century and did not mint its own coins. Did you mean the medieval Czech kingdom?

Deda Lebeda

Looking through your list, I did not find the Russian name denga, referring to ½ kopeck.

 

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denga

 

By the way, is there any particular reason why the Czech part of your list also includes the Great Moravia? I mean, this state only existed for a short time during the 9th century and did not mint its own coins. Did you mean the medieval Czech kingdom?

The Denga is added to the list, thank you!
I think I found an improper reference to Great Moravia on some website when looking on Google for the things MIMAEL wrote about. Generally I meant ‘predating Czechoslovakia’, yet as that may cause confusion I decided to remove the reference.

E. Timmermans

The Denga is added to the list, thank you!
 reference to Great Moravia on some website when looking on Google for the things MIMAEL 

Be very careful even at night!!!

Big brother is watching - evaluating, monitoring even when it's three in the morning.

MIMAEL -He didn't do anything wrong, he just wanted to thank the people who believed in him, kept their fingers crossed, helped him and healed him - overcoming his third tumor.

I live and work in places where "Great Moravia" left a legacy.

The denarius I created is a fictitious -exonumia from "Great Moravia", according to preserved legends and facts from chronicles in Rome.

N#228786

https://gorazduv-denar.webnode.cz/

https://www.livius.org/sources/content/cassius-dio/dio-on-the-rain-miracle

And MIMAEL is still casting metal and manually hammering coins into minting dies, which he gives to people with good intentions ❤️💓. It's getting harder and harder, or he can't hold the hammer 🔨 in his hands anymore.

I live in Moravia, which is one of the three traditional lands, in the territory where the state administration of "Great Moravia" was in the past.

Ivan

Not really too common to hear anymore, but the 5 cent coin in Australia is referred to as ‘shrapnel’. These coins have very little value and are therefore effectively just a clump of metal - hence the nickname. 

This nickname also extends to all of the denominations to a lesser extent. (Pictured, a handful of shrapnel).

All of the notes here also have nicknames, with the $100 known as a lettuce head/ hundie, $50 as a pineapple, $20 as a lobster, $10 as a tenner, and $5 as a fiver. 

Image courtesy: https://www.politico.eu/article/king-charles-wont-replace-queen-on-australia-5-dollar-banknotes/

New Zealand

All coins are called shrapnel as they are worthless pretty much.

$1 and $2 coins are gold coloured, but made out of muck metal aluminium brass, yet some people still think they are real gold.

Still people refer to them as gold coins for cost like in ads “Gala party, please bring a gold coin donation”

We don't really name notes, but some of the more down to earth call them “cashies”. The $50 above is the main note coming out of ATMs now, but we don't really use cash thanks to credit cards and eftpos. The $50 is also the gamblers curse as gambling machines (Called pokies by the working class) only take notes up to $20 and the gamblers have to break the notes.

$100 notes (Historical example shown above), have never caught on here and basically if you present one, they will ask for smaller notes or check its legality. You don't really see them outside of casinos (We have 4 in total here) and in organised crime, usually a picture of captured meth and guns, shows stacks of cash mostly purple $50s and green $20s, but always some red $100s - hence why they are crime notes.

So strange as $100 is not even very much money now (US $55, £42, €52), but I suppose to the poor it is.

For our other notes, The $1 was just a single or a buck, the $2 was a deuce. Both disappeared in 1991

Five dollars has always been a fiver, althought this name was also used for the old five pound note too. Some may call it  a Hilary as Edmund Hilary appears on the note.

Ten dollars is a tenner or a “Kate” as she appears on the note, she got women suffrage in 1893.

Twenty dollars is just twenty bucks or twenny as some of ghetto slang of today calls it, like a twenny dogg (African American rap talk mainly by teenagers and low intelligence types). As the Queen appears on it, no one calls it a queenie or a queener as the royal family has lost popularity amongst the cash carrying demographic (Mostly poorer and more ethnic people).

For older coins we used similar names to the British and Australians.

A threepence was a tickey, a sixpence a joey, a shilling was a bob and florin was two bob, pounds were a quid, and the 10 shilling note was called 10 bob. The word “bob” was used for shillings in general - like “Its more dodgy than a 3 bob watch”, “Hes a bob short of quid”

Tickey                                                                     Joey

Bob                                                                           Two bob

Ten bob note                                                        Quid

Finally the lowest vernacular referred to coins as “pingas” and notes as “splat”.

US $100 banknote is a C-note.

Hong Kong

5 Cents  - 斗零 (Pronounce: dau2 ling2)

The name derives from the weight of the coin (3.6 Candareens), reading “three” “six” in a commercial code.

1 Dollar - 大餅 - Big biscuit (Pronounce: daai6 beng2)

Derives from crown-size silver coin.

Regards

Chris

I also remembered that the Czech 1000 crown (1000 Kč) note is sometimes called "Palacký," because it has depicted a historian and politician František Palacký since 1993. However, this name is definitely not as widespread as previous ones mentioned for this denomination.