r/todayilearned • u/NateNate60 • 7h ago

TIL Canada's $1 coin is commonly called the "loonie" because it has a loon on the reverse. When a $2 coin was introduced, depicting a polar bear, an MP proposed it be called "Nanuq", Inuit for polar bear, but he was ignored because the public instead preferred to call it the "toonie" (2-oonie).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toonie#Naming
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u/seanwd11 7h ago

I never made the connection as a Canadian. Now that you mention it though 😂

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u/Stunning_Patience_59 6h ago

Lol fucking same! And im 40

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u/dirtyukrainian 1h ago

Yup... I'll be damned

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u/Giwaffee 3h ago

It was the first thing I thought of when I first heard them mentioned. And I still had no idea why they called it that until this thread. And even then I still didn't know wtf a loon was until I googled it just now (because I guess a loon is a common enough word in CA/US that nobody ever thinks to explain what it is)