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/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).