Canadians have weird names for things. They call winter hats "toques" and states "provinces." North Americans in general have a thing for naming the denominations of their coins. The one cent is a penny, the five cent is a nickel, ten cents are called dimes and the 25 cent coin is called a quarter.
But the strangest names by far are the nicknames given to Canadian currency. Canada has pretty much the same currency divisions that the U.S. has: Cents, Nickels, Dimes, Quarters and Dollars. But the most bizarre nicknames are given to the one and two dollar coins.
The Canadian dollar has a picture of a loon (a type of bird, a bit like a duck) on the back and therefore the one dollar coin in Canada is called a "Loonie".
Who names their coins "Loonies?" Canadians, that's who. And maybe Dr Suess or Disney.
Canadians love the loonie. They liked it so much that the two dollar note was also then replaced by a coin with a polar bear on it. Initially nicknames were tried such as the bearies, the bearly, the deuce and the doubloonie (a play on "double Loonie" and the former Spanish doubloon coin). A "doubloon" sounds like something pirates would search for, so the Canadians went with “toonie”.
The strangely-named money is loved by Canadians. In recent years, the loonie became associated with Canada's winning hockey teams and has been viewed as a good-luck charm in international competition.
The legend began during the 2002 Winter Olympics, when a Canadian icemaker for the ice surfaces in the ice hockey tournament, Trent Evans, buried a loonie under centre ice. Both the Canadian men's and women's hockey teams would win gold in the tournament, the men's 50 years to the day after their last gold medal victory.
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