Loonie often discuss the rate at which the "loonie" is trading against other currencies. The nickname "loonie" became so widely recognized that in 2006, the Royal Canadian Mint secured the rights to it. When the Canadian two-dollar coin was introduced in 1996, it was in turn nicknamed the "toonie" (a portmanteau of "two" and "loonie"). Canada first minted a silver dollar coin in 1935 to celebrate the 25th anniversary of George V's reign as king. The voyageur dollar, so named because it featured an Indigenous person and a French voyageur paddling a canoe on the reverse, was minted in silver until
Canadian dollar the Canadian dollar coin from the dollar bill. When the two-dollar coin was introduced in 1996, the derivative word "toonie" ("two loonies") became the common word for it in Canadian English slang. In French, the currency is also called ; Canadian French slang terms include or (the original word used in 18th-century French to translate "dollar") and (equivalent to "loonie", since is French for "loon," the bird appearing on the coin). The French pronunciation of (pronounced similarly to English as or , not like the word for hundred, or ) is generally used for the subdivision; is another, informal, term