Thursday, July 30, 2009

World Currency Names

AUKSINAS (Lithuania) - means "golden" or "gulden". Auksinas derives from
lithuanian "
Auksas" which means "gold". Currently "Litas" is used in Lithuania
which has no particular or direct meaning or translation other than similarity with
the name of the country "Lietuva" (Lithuania; Litauen; Lituanie; Lituania).

COLON (Costa Rica, El Salvador) - derives from last name of Christopher Columbus -
Cristobal Colon
.

DRACHMA (Greece) - means "handful".

ESCUDO (Portugal) - means "shield", referring to the coat of arms on the original
coin.

FORINT (Hungary) - comes from the city of Florence, where golden coins were minted
from 1252 called fiorino d'oro. In Hungary, florentinus (later forint), also a gold-based
currency, was used from 1325 under Charles Robert.

FRANC (Frank, Frang) (France, Switzerland, Luxembourg) - first issued in
1360, as a gold coin. Gets its name from its original Latin inscription - Francorum
Rex
, which means "King of the Franks", - the title given to kings of France in the
1300s.

GUILDER (Gulden, Florin) (Netherlands) - from the same root as "gilded", the
guilder was originally a gold coin. It was first introduced from Florence in the
13th century. Florin - another nickname for Guilder means "flowers".

KORUNA (Czechia, Slovakia) - means "crown".

KRONA (Kroner, Kronor) (Iceland, Sweden, Norway etc.) - means "crown".

KUNA (Croatia) - means "marten". Marten skins were used as money.

LIRA (Lire) (Italy, Turkey) - from the Latin word libra, which means "pound".

MALOTI (Kingdom of Lesotho) - Maloti is plural for Loti, currency of Lesotho,
a kingdom in Southern Africa.

PESETA (Spain) - means "little peso", and was created in the 18th century as a
"companion" coin to the Spanish peso.

PESO (Mexico) - means "weight". It was introduced by Spain in 1497, then
adopted by Mexico and other Latin American countries in the late 19th century.

POUND (English) - named for its weight in Sterlings, - the unit of currency in
Medieval England. The first pound coin was issued in 1642.

PULA (Botswana) - Pula means ‘rain’ in Setswana, but "pula pula" does not
mean a lot of rain. It means luck, prosperity, health.

RIYAL (Saudi Arabia) - borrows its name from the Spanish real, meaning "royal".

ROUBLE (Russia, Belarus etc.) - means "cut-off", a term that dates back to the
days when portions of silver bars were literally cut-off from the bars and used as
coins. The rouble was first issued as a silver piece in 1704.

RUPEE (Rupiah) (India, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Mauritius etc.) - comes from the
Sanskrit rupa, which means "beauty" or "shape".

TAKA (Bangladesh) - the word "taka" is derived from the Sanskrit "tanka" which was
an ancient denomination of silver coin. Taka currency name was also used in North India.

YEN (Japan) - borrowed from the Chinese yuan, which means "round", and
describes the coin. First issued in 1870.

YUAN (China) - means "round" and describes the coin.

ZLOTY (Poland) - means "golden".


http://www.banknotes.com/intro.htm#intro


3 comments:

  1. and where are germanic coins and money?
    like Gulden, Kreuzer, Mark, and Euro ?

    ReplyDelete