Currency pairs nicknames, where did they come from?

In everyday trading currency pairs are often referred to by nicknames. For example, the GBP/USD pairing is known by traders as Cable. Its has origins from the time when a communications cable under the Atlantic Ocean synchronized the GBP/USD quote between the London and New York markets. It’s the same thing about EUR/USD pair, they call it Fiber (because the way of communication)…

Does anybody know where did other pairs’ nicknames come from?

Chunnel for EUR/GBP,
Loonie and The Funds for USD/CAD,
Matie and Aussie for AUD/USD,
Geppie for GBP/JPY,
Kiwi for the New Zealand Dollar NZD/USD?

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ohh, yeah… one more nickname NINJA for USD/JPY, but i think it’s clear “why” :smiley:

The CAD nickname Loonie comes from the Loon bird depicted on our dollar coin

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I’ve been in the forex market since the middle 90s and haven’t heard of most of these used among institutional traders. They might be localized slangs, or maybe they are relatively recent and I’m just not that hip. :confused:

Chunnel is pretty obvious since that is the UK/EZ connector. As Sweet Pip notes, the loonie comes from the coinage and I wouldn’t be surprised if the kiwi was the same, though New Zealanders are commonly called kiwis, so that could be it too. Never heard of “Matie” or “Geppie” (we call GBP/JPY sterling-yen), or “ninja”. Fiber strikes me as a joke on cable.

I consulted with a colleague who’s a former dealer going back a ways and he said “Funds” for USD/CAD is an old term they used to differentiate CAD deposits from USD ones.

thank you wise guru :slight_smile:

The Kiwi is New Zealand’s national bird and is a nickname for New Zealanders. Hence the name for the currency pair.

I’ve heard of Guppy before for GBP/JPY. I’ve always presumed it came from mashing together GU and JPY and coming out with Guppy.

i’ve never heart of it

I’ve also heard of EU/JPY being called the “Yuppy” for a similar reason to the GU/JPY.

Do not know why, but it sounds like a bird for me.

In our trading circles we simple use “yen” for USD/JPY, never heard of ninja, but is a nice one :smiley:
We also call the GBP/JPY “guppy”, which by the way is a kind of tropical fish, and I have no idea where the name is coming from. It could be true what the one said before.
We generally avoid the term sterling, as it is confusing, some people call GBP/USD sterling, or cable, but other people call EUR/GBP sterling too.
I knew about fiber, but all people around prefer to call it “euro” and I stay to it. Never heard of chunnel, matie, up to now, but the others like cable, aussie, kiwi, loonie, are common names we use.

Sterling is the name of the currency, not the name of the pair. You wouldn’t call GBP/USD sterling (at least you shouldn’t), nor EUR/GBP. The latter would be euro-sterling.

Hi every one…
I got the following signal
Chunnel for EUR/GBP,
Loonie and The Funds for USD/CAD,
Matie and Aussie for AUD/USD,
Geppie for GBP/JPY,
Kiwi for the New Zealand Dollar NZD/USD?

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I know exactly what do you want to say. Being around for a while, and even working for a broker for some time. This story came actually for some “trainer” that time. He said some people have USD accounts, and when they were trading GBPUSD, they used to call it “sterling”. Some other people had EUR accounts, and when they were trading EURGBP they also used to call it sterling. He advised us to avoid this name in any other places where it does NOT refer to the currency. If you MUST use nicknames, then use cable for the first, and maybe he said something about chunnel too, but I don’t remember. I personally use “cable”, “aussie”, “kiwi”, “loonie”, but the EURUSD is always “euro”, I never use “fiber”, and please don’t tell me that “euro” is the currency, and not the pair :p, and I never use “euro-sterling”, in fact is not one of my favorite pairs and never talk about it :D. He said the best is to use [B]the pair name,[/B] as it is, which won’t bring any confusion. But this is not so fast to write, using caps, slash, etc, so some people prefer to use nicknames, write them without slash and without capitals, or other will use abbreviations like E/U, G/J during chats. Related to that, we also use “F” for Swiss [U]F[/U]ranc, to make distinction to Canadian dollar. So, USDCAD will always be U/C, but USDCHF is U/Ch or U/F. And so on (for other 6 base currencies, no confusion, as they are A, E, G, J, N, U) . People are free to use whatever they like, as long as they are understood around, and no confusion arise.

People around me just call currency pairs by their names. Calling them by nicknames is confusing and pointless.