How the world's currencies got their names

"Peso" literally means "weight" in Spanish.

The Italian and Turkish "lira" come from the Latin word "libra," meaning "pound."

Source: OxfordWords

Before the euro, the Deutsche mark and the Finnish markka also draw their names from units of weight.

Source: OxfordWords

The Latin word "regalis," meaning "royal," is the origin for the Omani and Iranian "rial."

Similarly, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and Yemen all use a currency called the "riyal." Before the euro, Spain used "reals" as well.

Source: OxfordWords

Like the dollar, South Africa's rand comes from the Dutch name for the South African city Witwatersrand, an area rich in gold.

Source: OxfordWords

The Chinese character "?," meaning "round" or "round coin," is responsible for the name of the Chinese yuan, Japanese yen, and Korean won.

Source: OxfordWords

Many Scandinavian countries use a currency that derives from the Latin word "corona," meaning "crown."

Sweden's krona, Norway's krone, Denmark's krone, Iceland's króna, and the Estonian kroon (now replaced by the euro), and the Czech Republic's koruna all derive from the same Latin root.

Source: OxfordWords

Jordan, Algeria, Serbia, and Kuwait all call their currency "dinar."

This is a pretty straightforward truncation of the Latin word "denarius," which was a silver coin used in ancient Rome.

Source: OxfordWords

The Sanskrit word for wrought silver is "rupya," which lends its name to the Indian and Pakistani rupee, as well as Indonesia's rupiah.

Source: OxfordWords

The British pound is derived from the Latin word "poundus" meaning "weight."

Egypt, Lebanon, South Sudan, Sudan, and Syria call their currency pound.

Source: OxfordWords

Russia's and Belarus' ruble are named after a measure of weight for silver.

Source: OxfordWords

"Zloty" is the Polish word for "golden."

Source: OxfordWords

The Hungarian forint comes from the Italian word "fiorino," a gold coin from Florence.

The fiorino had a flower, or "fiore" in Italian, stamped on it.

Source: OxfordWords

When coins were minted in precious metals, thieves would shave off small portions of the metal to create new coins.

To combat this, countries began minting coins with jagged edges.

The Malaysian word for jagged is "ringgit," the name of the currency.

Source: OxfordWords