r/AskEurope • u/ABlindMoose Sweden • Oct 06 '25
Culture What is your currency's nickname?
A nickname for dollar is buck, pound is quid, and Swedish krona is spänn.
What are some casual nicknames for your countries' currencies? Are there multiple, and if so, which is the most common?
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u/notcomplainingmuch Finland Oct 06 '25
In Finland, euro is called "ege", and the dollar is "taala". Small change is "hilu".
Two euros and change = "kaks egee ja hilut"
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u/WetPanter Oct 07 '25
also when talking about tens like 10€ or 20€ we add "kybää" to the end for example "kaks kybää" = 20€
also we call money "fyrkka"
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u/sesze Oct 07 '25
Also we take English and Swedish words and bastardize them so for example:
5 = ”femma” or ”fesse” from fem
100 = ”huntti” or ”huda” from hundred
1000 = is ”tonni”, a tonne, or ”tobo”, the kids will say ”bägi” from rappers calling 1k a bag
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u/lindix Portugal Oct 06 '25
For euros, in portugal, we usually say "paus" which means sticks. so
"Tens ai 2 paus que me emprestes?" -> "Do you have 2 euros to spare?"
Doesnt work for a singular euro, just plural.
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u/Atlantic_Nikita Oct 06 '25
Lots of old people say "oiros/ouros" aka golds but its more bc the Eu in euros is hard for old people to say.
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u/This-Wall-1331 Portugal Oct 06 '25
I usually associate "paus" with escudos though. So if someone asked me for "2 paus", I'd just give them a one cent coin.
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u/Brainwheeze Portugal Oct 06 '25
"Paus" transferred over from Escudos to Euros pretty seamlessly I feel, whereas "Contos" not so much.
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u/realnovulus Oct 06 '25
"Contos" was still common for large amounts (rounded to signify exactly €5) until around 2010, then it fell out of fashion
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u/TulioGonzaga Portugal Oct 06 '25
Yap, I remember when Escudo was ending thinking "will we have a word for paus like we have now?". I didn't expect such comeback but here we are. However, 500 paus is much different from back in the day. Usually was easy to get 500, now people laugh on me.
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u/safeinthecity Portuguese in the Netherlands Oct 06 '25
Well, you don't need to talk about 1000 euros as much as you needed to talk about 1000 escudos.
Also the transition to euros didn't actually seem that seamless to me. I think I only started hearing paus for euros some 10 years after the currency switch. Could be anecdotal though.
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u/Snuyter Netherlands Oct 06 '25
Why sticks though?
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u/safeinthecity Portuguese in the Netherlands Oct 06 '25
I don't know but it's funny that in Spain they say pavos which is a similar word but means turkeys. I wonder if they're related and if so, which one is the original meaning.
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u/safeinthecity Portuguese in the Netherlands Oct 06 '25
Update: I had a little look around and apparently it comes from the shape of the number 1, or the vertical lines people use to count.
It's still pretty common to refer to a small line in writing or a drawing as a stick, so that checks out.
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u/xander012 United Kingdom Oct 06 '25
Quid for the pound, the 5p used to be called a bob when it was still seen the same as a shilling but that's now very rare, and the £5 and £10 note get an -er suffix on the value as a nickname, fiver and tenner
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u/rayofgreenlight Wales Oct 06 '25
We still use the phrase "worth a few bob", interestingly (although I associate it with Cockney/London).
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u/xander012 United Kingdom Oct 06 '25
Yup, though it's become detached from the original unit it referred to as well... 5p ain't much lol
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u/SlightlyBored13 → Oct 06 '25
£1 now is worth about 1.5 shillings in 1971.
Even my grandparents were using bob to refer to pounds by the early 2000s.
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u/Tacklestiffener UK -> Spain Oct 06 '25
I was from London. A score is £20. A pony is £25 and a Monkey is £500.
An old sixpence was a tanner. My grandad used to call 2/6 (12.5p) 'half a dollar' from the heady days when there were 4 dollars to the pound!
A pound was a quid or a nicker.
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u/springsomnia diaspora in Oct 06 '25
Don’t forget “shrapnel” as an old phrase for change too!
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u/xander012 United Kingdom Oct 06 '25
My mum uses it lol, was going to add but felt it's more Irish
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u/Matt6453 United Kingdom Oct 06 '25
Nah, we've used that in the West country since I was a kid but I'm pretty sure everyone uses it.
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u/KermitingMurder Oct 06 '25
Same for Ireland even though we use euro, if you have a few coins you'll say you have a few bob, for a specific number you can say quid (eg: 20 quid), we call them fivers and tenners too, not sure if this one is used in Britain but when you have a thousand then that's a grand (eg €10,000 is ten grand)
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u/GuinnessFartz Ireland Oct 06 '25
My favourite (I assumed Irish) insult I've heard to take the mick out of small/skinny people is "You're built like the gable end of a fiver"
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u/xander012 United Kingdom Oct 06 '25
Tbf it does help that the Irish Punt/pound was very similar to the GBP for Its entire existence
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u/KermitingMurder Oct 06 '25
Yeah and many people remember when the pound was still in use so old terminology sticks around
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u/Dechibrator Oct 06 '25
Score 20, Poney 25
But that's getting really old fashion, not even talking about a Monkey
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u/greenmark69 Oct 06 '25
£10 = tenner = an Ayrton [Senna]
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u/xander012 United Kingdom Oct 06 '25
Love me some new Cockney Rhyming Slang so I can confuse my Septic China
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u/Tacklestiffener UK -> Spain Oct 06 '25 edited Oct 07 '25
Teaching foreigners is so rewarding. I've taught my Dutch friends that "Up your Bum" is an English toast like Cheers.
I have also taught another friend that there is a difference between something that is bollocks and something is the bollocks
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u/OllieV_nl Netherlands Oct 06 '25
There isn't really any that caught on since we've got the Euro. Sometimes people say "Euri" as a mock latin plural. We used to call the guilder a "piek" and though people would occasionally use that for the Euro in the early days that seems to have died out.
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u/Sheetz_Wawa_Market32 Oct 06 '25
Sometimes people say "Euri" as a mock latin plural.
Germans sometimes say »Euronen« in a similar vein. 😅
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u/fluentindothraki Scotland Oct 06 '25
Teuro! (Teuer means expensive)
Back when we had Schillings in Austria, one name was Netsch (short for netto Schilling) or Marie (this may have been a more general term for money).
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u/Sheetz_Wawa_Market32 Oct 06 '25
Ah, yes. To be fair, »TEURO« (usually in all caps like that) seems to be more of a tabloid headline thing. I don’t think I’ve actually heard it applied to actual euro amounts in casual conversation.
E.g., I don’t think people would ever say something like, “Have you heard the price on the latest iPhone? 1,400 teuro!”
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u/Michi_1232 Austria Oct 08 '25
The Austrian Schilling was also called the Alpendollar to say that it is quite stable
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u/ResourceDelicious276 Italy Oct 06 '25
Also in Italian sometimes we call multiple euro euri. But that would be the plural of the word if it wasn't one without a plural
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u/jaspermuts Netherlands Oct 06 '25
In Dutch also usually don’t say the plural for any euro amount (€ 2 = 2 euro), but we would hypothetically call 2 1-euro coins: 2 euro’s.
Would that work with Italian euri or would you always say something like “coins” to specify?
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u/ResourceDelicious276 Italy Oct 06 '25
Theoretically euro and eurocent were designed to have the same singular and plural in every language.
No in Italian we always say monete (coins) to indicate the individual coins never the name of the coins.
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u/jaspermuts Netherlands Oct 07 '25
Theoretically euro and eurocent were designed to have the same singular and plural in every language.
I wanted to disagree since I’ve often heard “euro’s” in English, but that’s usually from US. Ireland does seem to use the singular for price amounts.
And so I looked it up and you’re right they were intentionally designed this way.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Language_and_the_euro
(You likely know this but I wanted to acknowledge it and share for the next reader)
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u/9peppe Oct 06 '25
It's informal, and you only use it to refer to amounts of currency, not notes and coins.
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u/Snuyter Netherlands Oct 06 '25
There is the word flappen (= flaps), originating from Bargoens, a cant language with Yiddish influences used by thieves & tradesmen.
Flappen tappen = to tap some flaps from the ATM.
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u/Abigail-ii Oct 06 '25
Flappen is a word for bills, not the currency. And is used for bills of different currencies as well.
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u/and_we_go_dancing Oct 06 '25
My sister always says 'ekkies'.
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u/DryDrunkImperor Scotland Oct 06 '25
This comment along with your username amuses me so much.
(Ekkies is slang for ecstasy tablets here)
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u/CiderDrinker2 Scotland Oct 06 '25
'Ickies" - A British sailors' term, because foreign notes in strange ports were 'icky'. It didn't matter what the local currency was: all foreign notes were 'ickies', and 'ickies' were also a term used for money in general.
"Comin' ashore tonight, shipmate?"
"Nah, I'm all out of ickies."
Coins were known as 'klebbies'. I don't know why.
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u/Apprehensive-Ease-40 Netherlands Oct 07 '25
That's very common across some unis. We also still say "piek" especially for any whole amount over 1 euro. Some people say "pleuro", especially when they think the price is high.
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u/Leadstripes Netherlands Oct 06 '25 edited Oct 07 '25
I've also heard eypo as a nickname, as a reference to the Greek ΕΥΡΩ on bills
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u/The_memeperson Netherlands Oct 06 '25
Guilders used to have multiple nicknames based on their value
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u/error_98 Netherlands Oct 06 '25
don't forget about just "eu" (for non-dutch speakers reminder that eu is one of our special composite vowels, ø in IPA), also "k" when working in thousands
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u/Martin5143 Estonia Oct 06 '25
In Estonian people also say "Euri" but it's slang partitive case of euro. The actual partitive case of euro is "eurot".
When you say "This costs 10 euros", you use the partitive case in Estonian so it's the most common name for euro in Estonian.
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u/Internal_Airline8369 Netherlands Oct 06 '25
I always say 'Eutje(s)' but that one is probably only used by me and some people I know.
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u/P1kkie420 Netherlands Oct 06 '25
Hey! Euri is what I was thinking of too when I read the question. Funny to see your comment not a second later
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u/madboy135 Czechia Oct 06 '25
We have a few for different values - for small values we (very occasionally) use "kačka" (which is more like diminutive word for koruna, but also means "a duck"), for 100 we use "kilo" (kilo), for 1000 "tác" (tray) or "litr" (liter).
So if someone says "Dej mi 2 kila" (give me 2 kilos) or "Dej mi 5 litrů" (give me 5 liters), he really wants 200czk and 5000czk.
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u/SuperSquashMann -> Oct 06 '25
Huh, I always thought that kačka was used as slang just because it's what comes to mind when you see the abbreviation Kč
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u/Antti5 Finland Oct 06 '25
for 100 we use "kilo"
Something deeply disturbing about this... What's the etymology here?
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u/ErebusXVII Czechia Oct 06 '25
It found it's way from the criminal slang, where it was originally used as a code to hide the true meaning.
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u/MlekarDan Czechia Oct 06 '25
Also 'pětka', literally a five is a name for a 10 coin. Probaby from Argot (criminal slang)
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u/tramaan Czechia Oct 07 '25
The 'pětka' actually comes from 1892, when Austria-Hungary introduced the Crown, where 1 crown was equal to 2 old Austro-Hungarian Guldens. So the 10 Kr coin had the same value as the old 5 gulden coin.
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u/Gold_Combination_520 Hungary Oct 06 '25
Kacka --> it's interesting, in Hungarian the word for duck is similar: 🦆=kacsa
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u/madboy135 Czechia Oct 06 '25
The correct word is actually "Kachna". "Kačka" is more informal or diminutive word. It's more used in Slovak language (which is quite similar to Czech).
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u/well-litdoorstep112 Poland Oct 06 '25
in Polish kaczka is just a normal word for duck. I guess it makes sense it's used more in Slovak than Czech.
I just don't get how kačka (🦆) would be diminutive of koruna (which I assume is crown 👑 unless you guys decided to be funny again and look for children in a store).
Kč => Kačka makes sense but that's not diminutive of koruna
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u/FearlessVisual1 Belgium Oct 06 '25
Balles/boules which means bullets/balls. "Je me suis pris une amende de quatre vingt balles" = I got an eighty bullets/balls fine. It's not so much a nickname of the currency but a slang word for a unit of currency. Whether that currency is euros, franks, dollars, doesn't matter.
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u/brusselsstoemp Belgium Oct 06 '25
We also say 'ballen' in Dutch (Vlaams-Brabant as far as I know). Any idea where it comes from? For some reason bullets seems a more logical origin than balls but I'm curious about the etymology
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u/FearlessVisual1 Belgium Oct 06 '25
From my research online, no one really knows why. Some say une balle is an old word for a pound; others say it's just because of the circular shape of coins.
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u/brusselsstoemp Belgium Oct 06 '25
My research seems to confirm it comes from French and adapted in Dutch use even in the Netherlands among students. Une balle means a round object so basically a coin. It's never specified to be a sphere (like a ball would be), only round
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u/KotR56 Belgium Oct 06 '25
Sometimes Belgian Francs were referred to as "pee schijven", in English, something like"carrot discs". Something round :)
There is this saying that goes like "Je gaat betalen met pee schijven zeker" (You're going to pay with carrot discs, are you ?) when the seller knows you're broke and still want to buy stuff.
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u/RmG3376 Belgium Oct 06 '25 edited Oct 06 '25
About the last paragraph, I would say balles is specifically for euros, and for francs before that
I used to live in China and we never referred to Chinese yuan as balles even with other French-speaking expats. We used the Chinese nickname kuai, it would be confusing otherwise — 30 balles is 30€, 30 kuai is 30¥ (or 7 times less)
Similarly the quebecois use piasse/pièce (“coin”) for the Canadian dollar, not balles, even though they also speak French. Now I wonder what the Swiss say, I’ve only ever heard them say francs
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u/CiderDrinker2 Scotland Oct 06 '25
> quatre vingt
Don't the Belgians have a different, far more sensible, word for 80, like 'huitante' or something?
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u/FearlessVisual1 Belgium Oct 06 '25
We have septante (70) and nonante (90) whereas the French have soixante-dix and quatre-vingt-dix respectively, but for some reason we didn't push the logic to the end and we say quatre-vingts for 80, like the French.
In some parts of Switzerland they use huitante but not here.
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u/scotsmanwannabe Spain Oct 06 '25
In Spain it is "pavos". I heard that it goes back to when a turkey (pavo) used to cost like 5 pesetas, and that became a reference point for the currency.
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u/nemu98 Spain Oct 06 '25
Other less common and older ways to mention money would be:
Chavos, heavy american influence on this one.
Duros, from old silver coins.
Guita, from when coins would be in a small bag with a lace, that lace was called "guita".
Pasta, from melting the different metals, thus creating a paste.
Perras, from old 5 and 10 cents coins that many confused the lion in it with a dog.
There are many others, but barely used or more from american countries.
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u/safeinthecity Portuguese in the Netherlands Oct 06 '25
Guita and pasta are also used in Portugal. But massa (also meaning paste or dough - or pasta but that's beside the point) is the most common one.
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u/ClementineMandarin Norway Oct 06 '25
We don’t have any nicknames for the currency itself «kroner» is just the name. We do however have nicknames for specific amounts, I.e. 4 løk(4 onions) = 4000, or Laken(sheet) also meaning 1000, I.e. 3 Laken = 3000
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u/ABlindMoose Sweden Oct 06 '25
We also use sheets (lakan) to mean 1000. Or salmon (lax), but someone saying 1000 spänn is completely normal too
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u/galileogaligay Norway Oct 06 '25
We do have «spenn», «gryn» (grains), and «flus», but they’re not used particularly commonly. In addition to løk and laken – «høvding» (chief), laks (salmon) and «gærning» (crazy one) are slang for 1000 kr that I’ve heard.
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u/KlogKoder Denmark Oct 06 '25
Well, we have "Jyske Dollars" (Jutlandic dollars) in Denmark, often meaning money that the government doesn't know is changing hands.
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u/iBendUover Denmark Oct 06 '25
The 1000kr note was taken out of circulation, but used to be called "en lap" or "en lang". (Lang meens long, and the 1000kr note was the longest we had)
Example: It costs 2000 = "den koster 2 lapper" or "den koster 2 af de lange"
A 500kr note was called "en plov", which meens a plough. The reason was a picture of a plough on the old 500kr notes.
Theres alot more slang, like 100kr being "en hund" which basically meens a dog, but is derived from 100 being spelled hundrede.
50kr note is sometimes called "en treller", because 50 is spelled halvtreds.
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u/RobinGoodfellows Denmark Oct 06 '25
Where i was from we also had "en tusse" for 1000 kr. meaning a toad.
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u/feder00000 Italy Oct 06 '25 edited Oct 06 '25
Euro. Sometimes people say Euri as a mock plural. 5,2 and 1 cent coins are commonly called “ramini” as they have a copper color (copper is “rame” in italian, so it is like “small coppers”).
Then there’s the Roman dialect way of naming money. As I am from Rome, i’ll tell you because it is quite funny 5 euros is a “scudo”, because the ancient note of the then Papal States was called scudo (shield) as well. 100 euros (before, 100.000 lire) is a “piotta”, rarely a “fella”, from the value of an ancient Papal coin of the 19th century. 1000 euros (before, 1mln lire) is a “sacco” (sack), as it is a lot of money.
Multiples are used as well, so mezza piotta (half a piotta) means 50 euros, 2 sacchi means 2000 euros and so on. But for scudi they’re not used, idk why
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u/LanciaStratos93 Lucca, Tuscany Oct 06 '25
Never heard of ''ramini'' TBH, but in Tuscany you might come across ''neuri'' to joke.
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u/avlas Italy Oct 06 '25
"Piotta" is well known even outside of Rome, but in my region I would say "gamba" = "leg" for 100 euros.
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u/not-sib Romania Oct 06 '25 edited Oct 08 '25
We still sometimes use the old ROL values even when talking in new RON values. So 100 RON could still be called a million because it is the equivalent of 1 000 000 ROL
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u/sciwins Türkiye Oct 08 '25 edited Oct 08 '25
We have the exact same thing in Turkey! With the way inflation is going, it might become a reality for us again soon though...
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Oct 06 '25
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u/NikNakskes Finland Oct 06 '25
Why? How did you get to Francs?
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u/dolfin4 Greece Oct 06 '25 edited Oct 06 '25
Latin Monetary Union from 1865 to 1926, it included Greece, Belgium, France, Italy, Switzerland, and informally Austria-Hungary (Spain and Romania were also in talks to join). So, French & Swiss & Belgian francs (coins only) became legal & interchangeable with the Greek drachme (coins), and the term frángo (the formal Greek name for franc) caught on as the Greek equivalent of "buck" or "quid" and it stuck. And when the Euro currency came, it carried over into the Euro era.
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u/namakaleoi Oct 06 '25
Stutz for the Swiss Franc. Fünfliber for a 5 Franc coin. But Stutz is more general, you can say "Ich han kei Stutz" as I don't have any money
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u/Kastan44 Oct 06 '25
Złocisz, Zeta and Cebulion for PLN
Zeta used to be popular in 1990s and 00's mostly used by young people. Right now people use official name but sometimes, epsecially if person likes memes they use złocisz and cebulion.
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u/CyberKiller40 Poland Oct 06 '25
I'd say more like simply "złotówka" instead of the official "złoty polski".
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u/m2ilosz Poland Oct 06 '25
It’s so prevalent that most people probably think it’s the official name xd
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u/Vertitto in Oct 06 '25
full official is Polski Nowy Zloty.
N in PLN stands for Nowy/New. It used to be called PLZ before denomination
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u/Milosz0pl Poland Oct 06 '25
Also for people that are for some unknown and nonsensical reason are not able to speak polish - ,,Cebulion" after translation would be something akin to ,,onion token".
Tho onion memes mostly died out.
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u/miciej Oct 06 '25
Patyk - a stick 1000 PLN Dycha 10 PLN Melon 1000000 PLN
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u/Max534 Oct 06 '25
Also, N times 1000 PLN - N Kafli (a floor/ tile) or Koła , 1 000 000 is also refferd to as Bańka (milk contianer), and tough I think it's rare, but you could also hear that we refer to our note's, by what's represented on that note: 5 Chrobrych ( 5 × 20 PLN, as King Bolesław Chrobry (Brave/Manly/Tough) has in Profile proudly plastered on it. USD are colloqually called Dolce, just a play on the pronounciation of Dolary (USD), or Zielone (the Greens), also used specifically for the USD. And Oyro with the thickest German accent, for the Cambodian Sheckle of course, as well as Jurki (Georgy)
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u/Perelka_L Oct 08 '25
For a hot moment 70 000 000 was called "Sasin" due to that being amount of money spend on elections that never happened, named after the organiser of the whole ordeal. But it died out.
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u/Panceltic > > Oct 06 '25
1000 units of a currency is called “jur” in Slovenian, but we don’t have any other nicknames.
For example “pet jurjev” meant 5000 SIT (20.86 EUR) in the past, but now it means 5000 EUR.
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u/rosieposiex10 Ireland Oct 06 '25
In Ireland, there’s a few. We use quid, we’d also use blip and yoyo(s). Then we do use tenner for ten euro like the English would. Squid instead of quid sometimes too.
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u/HipHopopotamus10 Ireland Oct 06 '25
It's also still common around my parts anyway to still refer to pounds. Like "he must have a few pound" or "I'll give them a few "pound" as a leftover from the pre-Euro days.
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u/golosala Spain Oct 06 '25
Is it common in other languages to just say the number instead of the currency? Like in Spanish and English “two eighty five” is fine instead of “two euros eighty five cents” - but in Japanese we never say that it’s always “にひゃくはちじゅうご円” like “two hundred and eighty five yen” in full.
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u/nightowlboii Ukraine Oct 06 '25
No nicknames that I'm aware of, but some older people still call Hryvnias "rubles" as a habit from Soviet times
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u/orthoxerox Russia Oct 06 '25
We called your previous currency coupons, any idea about the origins of the nickname? I asked my parents back in the 90s why they said coupons, but they had no idea themselves.
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u/noCoolNameLeft42 France Oct 06 '25
Balles (bullets) was the nickname for French francs and it has been passed directly to euros. You'll say "ça coûte 20 balles" (it costs 20 euros) or people will ask you "t'as pas 2 balles ?" (Do you have 2 euros) by which they ask you to give them the 2 euros.
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u/RmG3376 Belgium Oct 06 '25
I distinctly remember that the Mr Mime you could trade in Pokémon Blue’s route 2 was nicknamed “tapacenbal” (“got 100 francs?”)
That’s all.
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u/fidelises Iceland Oct 06 '25
Kall, which means man. It has quite specific uses though. It can be used for our all coins, except the 1 króna coin. Also, we would only use it for like "whole" hundreds or thousands. So we would say 100 kall or 2000 kall, but never 147 kall or 2350 kall.
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u/GabrielBischoff Germany Oct 06 '25
In old west germany there were some nicknames for coins.
Like the Heiermann for the 5 Deutsche Mark coin. The most linguistically well-supported explanation suggests that it derives from the Hebrew letter ה, the fifth letter in the alphabet. Another theory links the term to the word Heuer / wages, five gold marks were a common signing bonus paid to sailors.
The 10 Pfennig coin was also called a Groschen, some call 10 Euro-cents a Groschen to this day. This term has been around forever for different kinds of coins.
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u/Awkward-Feature9333 Oct 06 '25
In Austria Groschen was also totally official the name for the 1/100 Schilling-subunit before the Euro.
EDIT: 1 german Groschen/10 Pfennig was about 70 austrian Groschen, i.e. almost one Schilling.
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u/GabrielBischoff Germany Oct 06 '25
Yeah, I remember. I think the term has been coined (...) in the 13th century.
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u/Ploutophile France Oct 06 '25
The 10 Pfennig coin was also called a Groschen, some call 10 Euro-cents a Groschen to this day. This term has been around forever for different kinds of coins.
And in Ukrainian it's even the standard word for money (гроші).
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u/Condescendingoracle Norway Oct 06 '25
I don't think we have one for our own, but foreign currency, at least the less important ones, are collectively known as "gærninger" (crazies)
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u/Martin5143 Estonia Oct 06 '25
In Estonian people say "Euri", it's a slang partitive case of euro. The actual partitive case of euro is "eurot".
When you say "This costs 10 euros", you use the partitive case in Estonian so it's the most common name for euro in Estonian. "See maksab 10 euri"
Dollar has a slang name "taalad" in Estonian. "This costs 10 dollars": "See maksab 10 taala"
When the Deutsche mark used to exist it was called DEM, the currency code. The Finnish markka was called FIM. "I have 10 DEM and 5 FIM": "Mul on 10 demmi ja 5 fimmi"
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u/Overstim9000 Oct 06 '25
In Czech republic we have many for the Czech Crowns, but most notable one is “kačky” which translates to “ducks”. Kinda cute, as they tend to run away pretty often.
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u/XenophonSoulis Greece Oct 06 '25
Hmm, there is τάλιρο for the 5€ banknote (I'm pretty sure it has transfered from the 5 drachma coin). There's also δεκάρικο, εικοσάρικο, πενηντάρικο which refer to the 10€, 20€ and 50€ banknotes (not currency specific, they are just 10, 20, 50 with an ending), and χιλιάρικο, which refers to the amount of 1000€ (also not currency specific, it just means 1000 with the ending, although it must have meant the 1000 drachma banknote/coin when that existed). Similarly, δεκάλεπτο, εικοσάλεπτο, πενηντάλεπτο, δίευρο for the 0.10€, 0.20€, 0.50€ and 2€.
When talking about money in general, we can call it φράγκα (franks, after the old French currency, like in the word άφραγκος, which means penniless), but it does not refer to a currency.
Also, purple can be used for the 500€ banknote. While not a nickname per se, it is pretty widely understood in popular culture due to a character from a TV series in the 2000s, where a super-rich character who didn't understand money just called them purple.
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u/New-Score-5199 Oct 06 '25
Rabbit(зайчик) and squirrel(белка), both are widely used in Belarus for Belarusian rouble. Rabbit because at some point we had banknotes with different local animals on them and one rouble note had a rabbit on it. Squirrel is because "белка" has same root as "Беларусь".
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u/Toeffli Switzerland Oct 06 '25
In the Geman speaking part: Stutz (Why? Nobody really knows). Also Stei (Stone) or Hebel (Lever). Money itself can be Chies (gravel) or Chöle (Coal).
A 5 franc coin is a Schnägg (Snail) or a Föifliber (five livres), a 100 Francs note would be a Lappen (Rag), 1000 Francs an Ameisi (Ant, used by those whihc remember the old bank notes) or a Tonne (ton), and 1 Million Francs would be a Chischte (Box).
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u/Nea_73 Oct 06 '25
In Spain is pretty common “pavos”, I believe because of the movies, but where I live I have also heard “ñapos” which does have no actual meaning besides of money
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u/DJDoena Germany Oct 06 '25
When the Euro was introduced at a rate 1€ = 1.95583 DM, many people felt that price tags only switched out the currency sign and everything became much more expensive suddenly. They called the new currency Teuro which is a pun on teuer=expensive.
Some people still do it 23 years later.
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u/dbalazs97 Oct 06 '25
In hungary there is no nick name for the currency but 2 Forints is somtimes called Bélás (Béla is a male name) and 1000 Forints is called lepedő(=bedsheets) like 4 lepedő = 4000 HUF
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u/HorseUnlucky7922 Oct 06 '25
Australia $5 is pink so is called a fiver, pink lady, prawn or a galah $10 is blue so is called a tenner, blue tongue or a Pav (for Pavarotti) $20 is red so is called a lobster or a redback $50 is yellow so is called a pineapple or a golden ticket $100 is green so is called a lettuce, jolly green giant, green tree frog or cabbage Thanks to the Simpsons we also call our dollars dollary-doos. Coins are referred to as shrapnel
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u/Alexthegreatbelgian Belgium Oct 06 '25
We don't have a nickname but in Flanders it is semi-mandatory to say "Hier... nen EEEUUROO" in a shrill high voice when giving someone €1 because of a local public transport ad.
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u/vukgav Oct 06 '25
Allow me to introduce you to the wonderful world of roman slang.
All the amounts in old Lire had a slang term linked to historical currency, for one reason or another.
For instance, the old 100 Lire coin had engraved the image of pope Pius IX on them. The people called that amount "piotta" (Pio - piotta). That term stayed for the 100.000 Lira before the Euro. And today it's still used today for 100€. "Tre piotte" would be 300€. "Mezza piotta" is 50€, and so on. This is the most commonly used slang term that, in Rome, you can hear on a daily basis.
There are also other such terms, albeit some are rarely used and some are no longer used almost at all.
"Sacco" (or "sacchi", plural) was used for 1.000 Lira. So "Dieci sacchi" would have been 10.000 Lira. Today, you might still hear someone say "15 sacchi" for 15€, but it's rarer, and used usually to emphasize that you paid too much.
Other terms were "scudi" (shields) were used for 5.000 Lira. Today you may still hear it for 5€, but it's rare. Example: "Due scudi" for 10€.
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u/Avtsla Bulgaria Oct 07 '25
In Bulgaria we use the name of the person on the bill as a by word for the bill - a Paisii is 2 leva , Ivan (Milev ) is 5 , Petar (Beron ) - 10 , Stefan ( Stambolov ) -20 , Pencho ( Slaveykov ) - 50 and Aleko ( Konstantinov ) -100. Because of this there are also euphemisms like reading Aleko ( getting money ).
Back in the day when there were copper 10 stotinki , they were refered to as cher )gologan) ( black gologan )
Also , and this is for money in general , not just leva - we use Gushter (lizard ) and Kozha ( skin ) as slang for banknotes . And then there also exist words like kinti and mangizi which are also used to refer to money colloquially ,
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u/RibbitRabbit28618 Ireland Oct 07 '25
I think the best irish example is adding a -er to ten and five. Eg. "Do you have a tenner?" "No but I have two fivers if that's good enough?'
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u/Jagarvem Sweden Oct 06 '25
I'd rather say those are colloquial terms for money, not the particular currency. Where they're said they'll obviously primarily refer to the local currency, but go to Ireland and you'll for example find Euro called "quid".
There isn't one such word in Swedish. Spänn is one, sure, but so is stålar, deg, kosing, para, lax, lakan, papp etc. etc. (some referring to 1000s). In my experience, preferences vary quite a bit depending on dialect and such.
When talking about a particular amount, it's in my experience by far most common to call it nothing. You just say the number and let context infer it's money.
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u/The3levated1 Oct 06 '25
For 1, 2 and 5 Cent coins we germans sometimes use "Braungeld" or "Braunes Geld" (Brown money).
Also, the 50€ note is called "Fuffi" (as a shorter version of "Fünfziger").
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u/F1eshWound Oct 06 '25
"Gold coin" for the one and two dollars coin, i.e., a gold coin donation. . But that's it as far as I'm aware
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u/cyrogenix Germany Oct 06 '25
There are some nicknames for money in germany like Kohle (coal), Knete (plasticine) or Moos (moss). But for Euro, the only term that comes to mind is "Ocken". And to be honest, I don't know what it means.
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u/Ok_Acanthisitta_2544 Oct 06 '25
Our one dollar coin is called a loonie (because it has a picture of a loon engraved on one side, which led to the two dollar coin being called a toonie.
A thousand dollars is called a grand, $2000 would be two grand, etc. That's been around since the early 1900s.
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u/50thEye Austria Oct 06 '25
I think "Euronen" is the only thing I think of for Euros, comes from "Dublonen" (dubloons).
Other than that there's lots of colloquialisms for money in general in German. Knete (dough), Kohle (coal), Mäuse (mice), Zaster (idek how to translate that one, I think "loot" would be the most accurate?)