What is the nickname for the Canadian dollar in foreign exchange markets? The loonie.
The nickname comes from the common loon, a water bird shown on the reverse of Canada’s one-dollar coin. Canada introduced that coin in 1987, replacing the one-dollar banknote, and “loonie” quickly became the familiar name for both the coin and, more broadly, the Canadian dollar.
The term is especially common in financial reporting and foreign-exchange conversation, where traders may refer to the Canadian dollar as the loonie. It is not the same as “greenback,” which traditionally refers to the U.S. dollar, or “Aussie,” which refers to the Australian dollar. “Kiwi” is commonly used for the New Zealand dollar.
Canada’s two-dollar coin, introduced in 1996, is informally called the “toonie,” a playful extension of loonie. In Canadian French, a related nickname is huard, the French word for loon.