Currency Etymology, How 16 Currencies Got Their Names

Key points from the infographic

The infographic explains where the names of 16 currencies come from, each shown with a photograph of a coin.
Several names come from weight or measurement: the lira and pound (Latin libra and pound), the peso (“weight”) and the shekel (“weigh”).
Others come from rulers or royalty, such as the krona (“crown”), the real (“royal”) and the franc (from Francorum Rex, “king of the Franks”).
Some are named after places: the dollar after Sankt Joachimsthal, the rand after the Witwatersrand ridge and the naira after Nigeria.
A few describe the coin itself, such as the yen (“round object”), the rupee (“wrought silver”) and the ruble (“to cut”).

The currency etymology chart in text

Title: how currencies got their names. Credits: Instagram @etymologynerd, Twitter @etymology_nerd. The graphic is a four by four grid of coins on a black background, with each currency name in white and its origin in yellow. The text is given as printed, including the creator’s American spelling and punctuation inside quotations.

Currency	Coin pictured	Origin of the name (as printed)
Dinar	Serbian 1 dinar	Traces to the ancient Roman denarius coin, which meant “containing ten” because it was worth ten bronze coins.
Dollar	US $1 coin with the Statue of Liberty	A shortening of German Joachimstaler, the name of a coin minted in the Bohemian town of Sankt Joachimsthal.
Franc	Swiss 1 franc, 1968	From the Medieval Latin phrase Francorum Rex, or “king of the Franks,” which was inscribed on French coins in the 14th century.
Krona	Swedish coin with King Carl XVI Gustaf	Literally means “crown” in Swedish, because crowns are stamped onto the coins. Same in Denmark, Norway, Iceland, Czechia.
Lira	Turkish 1 lira	Traces back to the Latin word libra, which meant “pound” and was the monetary system during the Roman Empire.
Naira	Nigerian 1 naira	Simply a contraction of the word “Nigeria” coined by Yoruba nationalist and Nigerian statesman Obafemi Awolowo.
Peso	Mexican $1 coin	Means “weight” in Spanish. The word used to refer to Spanish pieces of eight, which were issued with a consistent weight.
Pound Sterling	British 12-sided £1 coin	Sterling meant “little star,” in reference to the stars that appeared on Anglo-Saxon coins which were measured out in pounds.
Rand	South African 1 rand with a springbok	Named after Witwatersrand, the ridge where most of South Africa’s gold deposits were found.
Real	Brazilian 1 real	The term means “royal” in Portuguese and was borrowed from a Portuguese currency previously used in Brazil.
Renminbi	Chinese 1 yuan	A Communist term coming from the Mandarin words renmin, meaning “people,” and bi, meaning “currency.”
Ruble	Russian 1 ruble	Thought to be from Old Russian rubiti, meaning “to cut,” because early coins were made by cutting pieces off silver bars.
Rupee	Indian 1 rupee	From the Sanskrit word rupyah, meaning “wrought silver.” As an adjective, it meant “shapely” or “stamped.”
Shekel	Israeli 1 shekel	From Hebrew saqal, meaning “weigh,” because it was originally a unit of measurement roughly around 11 grams.
Taka	Bangladeshi 1 taka	Comes from the Sanskrit word tanka, which described a denomination of silver coin used in ancient times.
Yen	Japanese 1 yen	Means “round object,” in reference to the shape of the coins. Also a cognate of Chinese yuan and Korean won.

Checking the origins against other sources

Dollar. Merriam-Webster traces the word to the silver coins minted in the early 16th century at Sankt Joachimsthal, now Jáchymov in Czechia, which became known as Joachimstalers. The name was shortened to taler and then daler, and the dollar was adopted as the US monetary unit in 1792 [2].

Pound sterling. The pound refers to weight: in Anglo-Saxon England, 240 silver pennies made a pound [3][4]. The origin of “sterling” is less certain than the graphic suggests. The Oxford English Dictionary’s most plausible theory is Old English steorling, “coin with a star”, but the numismatist Philip Grierson rejected it and proposed a root meaning “stout” or “strong” [4].

Naira. Wikipedia confirms the name was coined from the word “Nigeria” by Obafemi Awolowo [5].

Yen, yuan and won. AAT Comment says all three come from the same Chinese character for “round” or “round coin”, matching the graphic’s yen entry [3].

Rand, peso and shekel. AAT Comment also links the rand to the ridge near Johannesburg where gold was mined, and gives peso and shekel the same weight-based meanings as the graphic [3].

Notes on this infographic

Sterling is disputed. The “little star” explanation is one theory. Wikipedia, citing the Oxford English Dictionary and Philip Grierson, gives it as the leading theory but records a rival one [4].
Not checked. We did not find a source we could open for the shekel’s weight of about 11 grams, the taka’s origin in tanka or the rupee’s adjective meanings, so these are given only as the graphic states them.

Questions about currency names

Where does the word dollar come from?

From Joachimstaler, the name of silver coins minted at Sankt Joachimsthal in Bohemia, later shortened to taler and daler. The US adopted the dollar as its unit in 1792 [2].

What is the name of the £ currency?

The £ sign stands for the pound sterling, the currency of the United Kingdom, usually called the pound [4].

What does krona mean?

Krona literally means "crown" in Swedish, because crowns are stamped onto the coins. The graphic notes that the same name is used in Denmark, Norway, Iceland and Czechia, and the Swedish coin pictured shows King Carl XVI Gustaf. The krona is one of several currencies named after rulers or royalty, alongside the real ("royal") and the franc.

Where does the word sterling come from?

The graphic says sterling meant "little star", after the stars on Anglo-Saxon coins, but that origin is disputed. The Oxford English Dictionary's most plausible theory is Old English steorling, "coin with a star", while the numismatist Philip Grierson rejected it and proposed a root meaning "stout" or "strong" [4]. The pound part refers to weight, as 240 silver pennies made a pound [3][4].