Throughout most of my life, personal cash caddies were called Billfolds. This was a proper, descriptive term for the item, unlike the now popular, but stupid "Wallet". Hal
I was a poor boy and we always called it a wallet probably because we did not have any folding money. I remember having a truckers wallet which was a large wallet with a chain that hooked with a loop to your belt. My mother seen me with it one day as she was working in a restaurant and said i hope you are not going to church wearing that. One minister who was in the restaurant spoke up and told my mother there is as many pickpockets in the church as there is in the streets. I felt better about using it.
Like @Martin Alonzo I have always called what I carried in a pants pocket a billfold, but when I carried a larger item in the inside pocket of a suit coat a wallet. Same function but different appearance. Now that I know longer carry a "wallet", I sometimes interchange the terms.
I also grew up with "billfold" and agree that it's more descriptive than "wallet," which is currently used. Maybe not, though, given that I rarely have any bills folded in my wallet; mostly it's a place to carry my driver's license and credit cards.
I never considered myself stupid for calling the leather thing that holds my cash a wallet that is, if I have any cash to hold. Why, if I have no cash would I call a wallet a “billfold”? Certainly, if it holds no bills then it is no longer a billfold but just a leather thingy that I put in my pocket that simply holds my identification, which does not fold and my debit card, which also does not fold. If one looks at the source of the word “wallet” it is from German descent and has a couple of vague meanings but the English version is something akin to a rucksack. (Now what on earth would I be doing with a rucksack in my back pocket?). Nope, wallet is good enough for me because bill fold has some connotation that I might actually be carrying money. Now it’s off to play a good game of solitaire toe ketch............
Where I grew up amongst cheap, er.......frugal, always conscious of money Czechs, they came to be called "grouch bags". Every time one was opened or unfolded, it let out a scream of protest! Frank
As a young boy I mostly heard grown-ups talk about a "Portomon(n)aie" (French words still had appeal in those days) which most people had. I had trouble spelling it correctly but finally managed to. Some people also mentioned their "wallet" which they mostly had in addition to a portomonaie. I found out that a wallet was what those people had who had more money, i.e. who owned bank notes. Interestingly, wallet was first recorded in 1834 in American English meaning a "flat case for carrying paper money". I never had that. That's why something which was made to hold coins made sense to me. As to the origin, "wallet" is not necessarily a word of German but of Germanic origin, i.e. old North French as well. These days portomonaie, although dated or extinct in English, is still being used in German. The equivalent word to wallet (or billfold) is not, presumably because these words are still not associated with coins. In addition, you can put all your credit cards and other service cards which are the size of a credit card into them. So what more do you want?
Dad always called it a wallet but Grandpa called it a billfold. Ladies purses also have a few different names ... handbag, pocketbook, purse, bag.
99% of the time I wear pants which have no fly so that would mean that I am free to carry something that does not fold bills ergo.....a wallet for carrying my cards. Also, I do have some cases in my small collection which do not fold bills but do hold them as straight bills. Since they do not fold bills, they cannot by the very way that they are made, be called bill folds. (Unless of course, you fold your bills in a straight case which would be a tad untidy, now wouldn’t it) Edit: Either way, in my neighborhood the intelligent thing to do is to replace the “wallet or billfold” for something akin to a holster.
When what ever you call it wears out do you patch it with Duck tape as I do? I have friends that put all together held by a rubber band and carried that way for years.
Ah, then I have probably missed diagnosed the local robbers around the neighborhood for they too demand a billfold and have not, from what I have been told, demanded someone’s wallet. They must be very intelligent thieves contrary to my initial thoughts.