BBC Business Correspondent Rory Cellan-Jones: The government awareness campaign seems to have had little effect

A survey for BBC Two's Money Programme, to be shown on Sunday, found 51% of respondents did not know the new currency was called the euro.

Guesses at the euro's name including Equarder, Ecru, Etu, Eu and Curo.

Estimates of its value against the pound ranged from one penny to £8, with just 10% of those questioned knowing it would be worth about 70p.

Exchange rate estimates varied wildly

And most of the 1,000 people interviewed between 27 and 29 November thought they would be able to use notes and cash next year, with only 5% knowing they would not be introduced until 2002.

The system is being introduced for 11 EU countries, excluding the UK, on 1 January.

The Labour Government has declared its support in principle for the single currency. But it has said that it will not join until there has been a suitable period to assess the effectiveness of EMU.

Three out of five Britons do not want to adopt the euro, according to another report earlier this month.

A survey of 1,300 voters showed that just 17% backed a switch from the pound.

Research group Social and Community Planning Research said there had been a slide in public support for the European Union in recent years, partly because of opposition to a single currency.

Public support for the European Union has fallen

It also found that there was no single policy area on which a majority of the British public would give up the UK's national decision-making powers.

Elsewhere in Europe, on the other hand, other hardened eurosceptics are slowly coming around to the idea of monetary union.

Sweden - which is outside the EMU and suffered in the aftermath of the Asian and Russian economic crises - has seen support for the euro grow by 10% since April.

Now 36% of Swedes think the euro is a good idea, compared to 26% seven months ago.

Euro coins will be not be introduced until 2002

Opposition to the single currency among Swedes has fallen from 41% to 35% in the same period.

In Germany too, support for the euro is creeping up. While in the autumn of 1997 only 40% of Germans backed the single currency, by May this year the figure had reached 51%.

German opposition over the same period dropped from 45% to 36%.

Europe-wide, women are less likely to support a single currency than men.

And support for the scheme diminishes with age - younger people anywhere in Europe are more likely to be in favour of monetary union.