Heads or tails around the world

Italian · Standard Italian (Treccani notes the game was also known by other names regionally and in the past)

testa o croce

Treccani explains the names directly: one face usually showed a head, and in earlier times a cross was often depicted on the other.

Thai · Thailand

หัวหรือก้อย

hua rue koi (RTGS)

The Royal Institute Dictionary says one side is “by convention” called the head and the other koi — the everyday word for the little finger — and offers no reason why. Nobody has a sourced answer; we are not going to invent one. Origin: likely, not certain

Danish · Denmark

plat eller krone

Den Danske Ordbog defines plat as the side of a Danish coin without the royal crown, from German platt, “flat”. Note the order: Danes say the flat side first.

Norwegian (Bokmål and Nynorsk) · Norway; identical in Bokmål and Nynorsk: 'kaste mynt og krone'

mynt og krone

Both official dictionaries define mynt here as the side showing the coin’s value and krone as the side with a picture of a crown. The fixed expression is kaste mynt og krone; “mynt eller krone?” is the spoken call.

Polish · Poland

orzeł czy reszka

Orzeł is the side with Poland’s White Eagle. Reszka has no Polish meaning at all: the Polish Academy’s dictionary records it as a loan from Russian решка, first seen in Polish in 1890.

Dutch · Netherlands and Flanders: 'kop of munt'

kop of munt

The Algemeen Nederlands Woordenboek defines kop as an image of a head and munt as the side carrying the mint mark and value. It also lists kruis of munt, “cross or munt”, without saying where it is preferred.

Turkish · Turkey. Verb phrase: 'yazı tura atmak' (to toss yazı tura).

yazı tura

The Turkish Language Association defines yazı as the side where the value is written and tura as the pictured side — a form of tuğra, the sultan’s calligraphic monogram that appeared on Ottoman coins. No “or” in the phrase: just yazı tura.

Russian · Russia and Russian speakers generally

орёл или решка

oryol ili reshka

The Large Explanatory Dictionary defines решка simply as the side opposite the coat of arms. The popular story that it comes from решётка, a lattice-like monogram on old reverses, is not in any etymological dictionary we could reach — a nice theory, unproven. Origin: likely, not certain

German · Germany; also current in Switzerland (DWDS examples from Neue Zürcher Zeitung 2023 and Basler Zeitung 2024)

Kopf oder Zahl

DWDS defines Kopf as the side on which not the value but often a person’s head is stamped, which makes Zahl, “number”, the value side. Current in Germany and Switzerland; Austrian variants are often cited but we could not source them.

Indonesian (and Malay, unverified) · Indonesia

angka atau gambar

Indonesian school probability exercises label the outcomes A (angka, number) and G (gambar, picture). The pair is consistent across textbooks but the national dictionary carries no coin sense, so we list it as customary rather than official. Origin: likely, not certain

French · All French-speaking countries; older/archaic 'croix ou pile' (cross or pile)

pile ou face

Pile is the reverse, where the value is shown; face the side with the effigy. The older game was croix ou pile — cross or pile — recorded by 1535 in Rabelais; pile ou face appears from 1834. The ultimate origin of pile is unsettled: Littré lists the competing theories.

Hebrew · Israel.

עץ או פלי

etz o pali

The usual explanation points to British Mandate coins: one side an olive sprig (etz, “tree”), the other the inscription Palestina, clipped to pali. Today etz is the picture side and pali the value side. We could not reach the Academy of the Hebrew Language to confirm the origin, so: likely, not certain. Origin: likely, not certain

Ukrainian · Ukraine

орел чи решка

orel chy reshka

The eleven-volume Academic Dictionary defines решка as the side opposite the coat of arms, where the value is shown. Modern Ukrainian coins carry the trident, not an eagle, so the name is a survival from imperial coinage — and some writers now propose герб чи цифра, “arms or number”, instead. Origin: likely, not certain

Chinese (Taiwan) · Taiwan

正面還是反面

zhèngmiàn háishì fǎnmiàn

Mandarin mostly keeps it literal: front side or back side. The toss is 擲硬幣, or colloquially in Taiwan 擲銅板. We found no official dictionary entry for the call itself, only common usage. Origin: likely, not certain

Chinese (Mainland) · Mainland China

正面还是反面

zhèngmiàn háishì fǎnmiàn

Front or back, as in Taiwan, with the toss written 掷硬币. Transparent and low-risk, but not confirmed in a standard dictionary. Origin: likely, not certain

Cantonese (Hong Kong) · Hong Kong (Cantonese)

公定字

gung1 ding6 zi6 (Jyutping)

公 is short for 公仔頭, the figure’s head on colonial-era coins; 字 is the side with the numerals. The 定 in the middle is simply Cantonese for “or”. The toss itself is 掟銀仔, written 擲毫. Origin: likely, not certain

Spanish · Spain: cara o cruz (also cara y cruz)

cara o cruz

The Real Academia defines cara as the obverse and cruz as its opposite. Latin America has its own words for the reverse: sello (seal) in Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Peru and Venezuela; ceca (mint) in Argentina; Bolivia also says sol o víbora, sun or viper. Mexico’s famous águila o sol is widely used but not in the academy dictionaries we checked.

Portuguese · Brazil (Michaelis) and Portugal (Priberam).

cara ou coroa

Priberam and Michaelis both define coroa as the reverse of a coin, in Portugal and Brazil alike. Neither says why — the crown on older Portuguese and imperial Brazilian coins is the obvious candidate, and only that. Origin: likely, not certain

Swedish · Sweden; SAOB's fixed expression is 'spela/kasta krona och klave'

krona eller klave

The Swedish Academy’s dictionary explains klave: normally a wooden or iron collar for tethering cattle, it names the reverse because the semicircular, highly stylised shield on some older Swedish coins looked like one. Attested by 1769.

Czech · Czech Republic

panna, nebo orel?

Neither a maiden nor an eagle appears on today’s Czech coins. Czech Radio’s language column calls the origin “a small mystery”, most probably Maria Theresa thalers — the Austrian double eagle on one side, the empress on the other. Note the native punctuation: Panna, nebo orel? Origin: likely, not certain

Hungarian · Hungary

fej vagy írás

The Pallas Great Lexicon of the 1890s calls fej and írás the folk names for obverse and reverse, modelled on German, and traces them to Francis I’s 1812 copper kreuzers: the ruler’s head on one side, a long legend on the other.

Romanian · Romania (and Moldova, not checked)

cap sau pajură

Pajură is a heraldic eagle and, by extension, the coin side bearing the national arms; dictionaries record cap sau pajură as the children’s formula for deciding by a toss, with the variant pajură ori număr, eagle or number.

Greek · Greece and Cyprus (Cyprus not checked).

κορόνα ή γράμματα

koróna i grámmata

The standard dictionary spells it κορόνα (not the κορώνα you will often see) and defines it, in this expression, as the side with the relief image of a person, as opposed to the side with the letters. The word came through medieval Greek from Italian corona.

Japanese · Japan. The act itself: コイントス (koin tosu).

表か裏か

omote ka ura ka

Front and back, with no coin design involved. A bonus from the Japan Mint: no law says which side of a yen coin is the front, so the Mint simply treats the side with the year as the back.

Korean · South Korea

앞면 뒷면

apmyeon dwinmyeon

The National Institute of Korean Language defines 동전 던지기, coin throwing, as a game won by whoever predicted the front. The sides are simply front and back.

Vietnamese · Vietnam.

sấp hay ngửa

Two everyday words for a body or object lying face-down (sấp) or face-up (ngửa), applied to the coin. The words are in the dictionaries; the collocation itself we could only confirm in use. Origin: likely, not certain

Hindi · India (Hindi)

चित या पट

chit yā paṭ

Like Vietnamese, the words describe lying on the back (chit) or on the face (paṭ); McGregor’s Oxford Hindi–English Dictionary lists चित-पट as “heads or tails (a game)”.

Finnish · Finland.

kruuna vai klaava

Both words mirror Swedish krona och klave, so the cattle-collar story applies at one remove. The Finnish dictionaries sit behind bot protection, so this rests on form and usage. Origin: likely, not certain

Latin · Ancient Rome

capita aut navia

Macrobius, writing around 430 CE, says Janus struck the first bronze coins with his own head on one side and a ship on the other, and that boys tossing coins still cried capita aut navia — heads or ships. His Janus story is mythologising; the ship on Roman bronze is real.

English · All English-speaking countries; historic 'cross and pile' (England); see separate entry for Irish 'heads or harps'

heads or tails

“Tail” for the reverse of a coin dates from the 1680s. The older English game was cross and pile, from the cross stamped on medieval coins; what pile originally meant is, per Littré, undecided — the often-repeated “the lower minting die” is not established.

Persian · Iran (Persian).

شیر یا خط

shir yā khaṭṭ

The Dehkhoda dictionary describes a two-person game with a coin bearing a lion on one side and writing on the other, also used by sports referees. Dehkhoda says only “a lion”, so we do not name the Lion-and-Sun emblem.