Not have a penny to one's name

Origin

For well over a millennium, the penny has served as a fundamental unit of currency in England, from the ancient Anglo-Saxon silver coins to its modern forms. It consistently represented the smallest, most basic denomination of wealth. To 'not have a penny' therefore signified absolute destitution—a state where even the most trivial coin eluded one's grasp. The addition of 'to one's name' cemented this bleak picture, emphasizing not just a temporary lack of cash, but a complete absence of any owned assets, however minuscule. It painted a stark image: a person utterly stripped of financial standing, with nothing—not even the cheapest coin—that could legitimately be claimed as their own.