I'm running Shadow of the Dragon Queen, and I read an article somewhere that suggested that PLAYERS and DM's call the coins "Gold Pieces, Silver Pieces, etc. etc." but, in-world, the CHARACTERS would call them by their in-world names!  WoTC long ago named all of the coins from Waterdeep.  I'm looking for suggestions for naming the other coins, especially in Kalaman, on Ansalon, in Krynn.  It's obvious to me that the Steel Piece is called either the Shinare or the Griffin (from the image on the head side.)  I was thinking that the Gold Piece would be called a "Dragon," similar to Waterdeep.  The silver coin should be called a "Solinari," after the Silver Moon.  The rest, I haven't a clue!  Could you guys please make suggestions?  Thank you!

Actually, while looking for a map of Faerûn, I saw this one interactive map that came with a bunch of information for all the different cities. One of those were coin names. If you're able to find it, you might either find the answer, or have some good inspiration.

PS. I don't know Faerûn that well, thus why I say might find the city, not will or will not. No clue what those places are 😅

Quote from Larry613 >>

I'm running Shadow of the Dragon Queen, and I read an article somewhere that suggested that PLAYERS and DM's call the coins "Gold Pieces, Silver Pieces, etc. etc." but, in-world, the CHARACTERS would call them by their in-world names!  WoTC long ago named all of the coins from Waterdeep.  I'm looking for suggestions for naming the other coins, especially in Kalaman, on Ansalon, in Krynn.  It's obvious to me that the Steel Piece is called either the Shinare or the Griffin (from the image on the head side.)  I was thinking that the Gold Piece would be called a "Dragon," similar to Waterdeep.  The silver coin should be called a "Solinari," after the Silver Moon.  The rest, I haven't a clue!  Could you guys please make suggestions?  Thank you!

 

 Don't forget that your coin names, especially for the slang way everyone refers to them, doesn't actually have to make sense. Perfect example is £1 in the UK, we call it a quid but if you lined up 100 people I doubt a single one could tell you why. Even Google isn't sure. Similarly Australia calls their $2 coin a quid as well because when they switched currency they used a $2 to £1 conversion rate. And that's just the most common one, we also have regional ones (like £500 being a monkey in London) that no one knows the origin of and even people in other cities wouldn't understand

In Cyberpunk there's Eddies, which is the phonetic pronunciation of 'EDs', which is an acronym of 'Eurodollars.' That's the basis for what I'm going to suggest below:

• 'Jeep' could be 'GP', short for 'gold pieces'. You've got espies (silver pieces), sippers, or sips (copper pieces), platters (platinum), elks (electrum).
• For square or triangular coins, any with a corner could be called 'sharps' or 'caltrops' (or 'deefors', though nobody knows where that came from...)
• You could use 'way', a deviation from 'weight' as in 'worth its weight in gold'.
• Orcs or Ox comes from 'auric', the element of gold. Hags or Aggies (or Auntie Agatha), comes from Ag, the element of Argentum (silver). Cups from cuprum, copper; to be in your cups could be to have spent your money on cheap drink.
• Shrapnel's used as a term for loose change, so you could have shavings, trimmings, bitz, spares, shells, sparks, et cetera.
• In Thieves' Cant, you might try to fit the words touch (gold), spoon (silver), age (bronze), or guards (copper) into a conversation. "...I tell ya, my fella he was born with a silver spoon in his mouth, and if he keeps arguing he'll choke on it at his age!" (The boss has collected the counterfeit silver coins at the docks, and is currently negotiating an exchange in bronze artefacts).
• In sign language, a fist is a pouch of coins (if the thumb is inside the fist, it means collateral or trade goods), a finger to the palm means a small amount, the sign of the horns is gold; if the fingers are facing up it means platinum; if the thumb is outstretched during the horns sign it means silver; a thumb inside the palm it means copper. There's also rupees in our world that have fingers on them that show how much they're worth, so if someone who is new sees a coin with three fingers held up, they know it's worth 'three'.

I hope that provides some inspiration! Like how CunningSmile above says, these can all be regional dialects with origins lost to time. Who knows why it's common for Orcs to call loose coinage 'bitz' or 'teef'. Must've been from the ancient times when they ruled the stars waging endless war for fun...

Naming coins after what is on them is common. If the coin has a lion on it, is a lion (Waterdeep has such a coin). A coin with a bridge on it could be a "bridge", shortened over time to a "brig" or a "rig". A coin with a griffon on it could be a "griff". A coin with a dog on it could be a "dog" or a "hound" or something seemingly-unrelated like a "toby" (because the previous king's vavourite dog was called Toby).

You could also just pick random combinations of letters that are easy to say.

PP are "tollers", GP are "keds", SP are "rorks", CP are "bims", EP are "complete rubbish". :-)

Copper = Nutz

Bronze = Bozak

Silver = Argent

Gold = Dragon  

Steel = Griffon 

Platinum = Bah'mut

Chip - copper

Sovereign - silver

Griffin - gold

Pegasus / Pegs - platinum

I'm trying to name the currencies in my homebrew setting as well, so I've been writing down some ideas. 

Some names based on the coin's image that I'm considering:  crown, helm, leaf, eagle, star, cross, sun

And some other names I'm looking at, not referring to anything in particular: rodo, chip, oran, doba, uzol, scale

Also, I recently learned about the historical practice of cutting coins into pieces and using the pieces as smaller denominations.  Dividing a Spanish silver dollar into 8 pieces is where the phrase "two bits," meaning a quarter of a dollar, comes from.  With that as inspiration, I'm having a region of my world call copper pieces "jags" - named for the "jagged" pieces of cut silver coins that they used to use before they started minting their own copper coins, triangular in shape as a reference to the old tradition.  Another area with the same practice now calls their copper coins "petals" because of the silver pieces they used to cut, which depicted a flower.

I would also try making the currency something other than metal.

My campaigns often use glass beads.

copper and electrum peices have holes in them so they can be strung on a string.

CP= grants (why? NO ONE KNOWS!)

EP= silver eyes (you could give them en eye design with the hole through the pupil