Why do multiple countries share "Dollar" as the same currency name? (piefed.social)

submitted 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) by Shadow79@piefed.social to c/asklemmy@lemmy.ml

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There are about 30 countries that share the same currency name "Dollar" (USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Brunei, Singapore, Barbados, Fiji, Cayman Islands & etc.). but they are not related to each other besides their name, since they have different values from one another, even though they share the same currency symbol: only thing that distinguishes them apart is the country prefix tied to $ (like US$, AU$, NZ$, C$, CI$, FJ$, SG$, Bds$, JA$, B$, etc.).

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[-] darklamer@feddit.org 21 points 1 month ago

They're all named after a famous old silver coin from Bohemia:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dollar#History

[-] digdilem@lemmy.ml 7 points 1 month ago

And also why tahler is seen in some old books, and those in well researched fantasy - some origin.

[-] LastYearsIrritant@sopuli.xyz 18 points 1 month ago

https://youtu.be/5Bf4ll1vuWw

The whole story is here. RobWords literally just did a video on it.

[-] tleb@lemmy.ca 2 points 1 month ago

Colonialism, "$" is a derivative of the shorthand for peso which was the name for the Spanish dollar. So all the locals were calling their money a dollar before the actual "dollar" currencies became a thing.

[-] MousePotatoDoesStuff@piefed.social 1 points 2 weeks ago

So dollars are actually pesos?

this post was submitted on 23 Apr 2026

30 points (96.9% liked)

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