This is a short and simple question that Google failed to answer me. How come the Commonwealth countries chose to opt for "Dollars" (e.g. Australian Dollar) as the name for their currencies instead of just using Pound (e.g. "Australian Pound")? They opted for everything else British; spelling, government, queen, military, even driving on the left side of the road. "Dollar" seems to have been uniquely American term at the time of these countries creation (1860-1910s), everyone else using Pesos, Thalers, Marks, Francs, etc. So what inspired AusCaNZ to adopt that name and sign ($) over "[National] Pound-Sterling"?
I can't speak for the Canadians and Kiwis, but I answered a question about the naming of the Australian decimal currency as the dollar, complete with quotes from Hansard, here.
On a linguistic note, Thaler and Dollar are related to each other, both arising from a way of calling a certain coin minted in Joachimthal (Joachimthal -> Joachimthaler -> thaler -> dollar). Joachimthal is now called Jachymov, and is a part of the Czech Republic.