Names
The name "markka" was based on a medieval unit of weight. Both "markka" and "penni" are similar to words used in Germany for that country's former currency, based on the same roots as the German Mark and pfennig.
Although the word "markka" predates the currency by several centuries, the currency was established before being named "markka". A competition was held for its name, and some of the other entries included "sataikko" (meaning "having a hundred parts"), "omena" (apple) and "suomo" (from "Suomi", the Finnish name for Finland).
With numbers, Finnish does not use plurals but partitive singular forms: "10 markkaa" and "10 penniä" (the nominative is penni). In Swedish, the singular and plural forms of mark and penni are the same.
When the euro replaced markka, mummonmarkka "grandma's markka" (sometimes shortened to just mummo) became a new slang term for the old currency. The sometimes used "old markka" can be misleading, since it can also be used to refer to the pre-1963 markka.
In Helsinki slang, the post-1963 new markka was known as huge (from Swedish hundra "hundred").
Read more about this topic: Finnish Markka
Famous quotes containing the word names:
“Being the dependents of the general government, and looking to its treasury as the source of all their emoluments, the state officers, under whatever names they might pass and by whatever forms their duties might be prescribed, would in effect be the mere stipendiaries and instruments of the central power.”
—Andrew Jackson (1767–1845)
“I have known a German Prince with more titles than subjects, and a Spanish nobleman with more names than shirts.”
—Oliver Goldsmith (1728–1774)
“Every man who has lived for fifty years has buried a whole world or even two; he has grown used to its disappearance and accustomed to the new scenery of another act: but suddenly the names and faces of a time long dead appear more and more often on his way, calling up series of shades and pictures kept somewhere, “just in case” in the endless catacombs of the memory, making him smile or sigh, and sometimes almost weep.”
—Alexander Herzen (1812–1870)