According to Bill Maurer, Ph.D., a cultural anthropologist at the University of California, Irvine, the dollar sign evolved from the way accountants and merchants abbreviated “Spanish peso”—writing an “S” and superimposing a lowercase “p” on top of the “S.” This was eventually simplified to the U.S. dollar sign that we know and use today. For this reason, the dollar sign was originally called—and still is also known as—the “peso sign,” Maurer says. ... Despite having a relatively straightforward explanation of its origins, there are alternative theories behind why the dollar sign is made using the letter “S.” One theory suggests that the dollar sign is derived from the Spanish coat of arms, which includes two pillars each wrapped in a cloth ribbon, representing the Pillars of Hercules, which was a sign of the Strait of Gibraltar, Maurer says. A competing theory is that the dollar sign is simply a “U” superimposed on an “S” for “United States,” but Maurer says that there’s no historical evidence supporting this explanation. Finally, another theory—which is also unsupported by historical evidence—is that it is derived from the Latin phrase “in hoc signo” or “by this sign,” which was abbreviated “IHS” in liturgical scripts, as well as on tombstones in the 19th century, Maurer says. “Tombstone carvers superimposed the letters ‘IHS’ on top of each other, which made it look sort of like a triple-stroke dollar sign,” Maurer notes.

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