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Many but not all current US Coins and bills have nicknames. Some date back to Colonial or even pre-Colonial days; many people no longer are even aware where the names come from!
Current coins
- 1 cent - "penny", after the roughly equivalent British coin it replaced.
- 5 cents - "nickel", even though it's mostly copper; comes from an early use of the metal as a replacement for its predecessor, the silver half-dime.
- 10 cents - "dime", but a true currency unit rather than a nickname; it's a holdover from a system proposed in the 18th century having 6 currency units rather than just cents and dollars.
- 25 cents - "quarter" because it's 1/4 of a dollar
- 50 cents - "half", "half a buck"
- $1 - "buck" (see below), sometimes "Sac" because some of the coins depict Sacajawea
Current bills
Bills are often referred to simply by their denominations - "a one", "a ten", etc. or occasionally by the name of the person pictured. Other names are
- $1 - "buck", possibly from the old use of animal hides as a quasi-currency; occasionally "clam", possibly for the same use of clamshells
- $2 - "deuce", from the French "deux" (two); occasionally "Toms" for Thomas Jefferson
- $5 - rarely nicknamed but sometimes "fin" from the Yiddish word for five
- $10 - "sawbuck", from an early design with the Roman numeral X that looked like a carpenter's sawbuck
- $20 - rarely, "double sawbuck", or "Jackson", for the President currently on the bill (pending a possible redesign)
- $50 - rarely nicknamed
- $100 - "Benjamins", because they carry a picture of Benjamin Franklin; also "C-note" for the Roman numeral equivalent of 100
Obsolete coins and bills had many varieties and nicknames. Among others:
- Silver half-dime - "fish scale" because of its small size and silver color
- Silver 3-cent piece - also "fish scale" for the same reason; sometimes "trime", a blending of the prefix "tri" for 3 and the word "dime"
- 20-cent piece - "double dime"
- $4 gold piece - "Stella"
- $10 gold piece - "eagle"; like "dime" not really a nickname but another actual currency unit inherited from that proposed 6-unit coinage system
- $2.50, $5.00, and $20.00 gold pieces - "quarter eagle", "half eagle", and "double eagle"
- $1000 bill - "Grand", "G-note", or "Kilo"
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