Terminology
In the UK, purses hold the money, cards and IDs of women. Wallets achieve this function for men. Woman have handbags to carry their purse and other belongings (gloves, tissues, make-up, phone, keys etc).
In the USA, handbags are called purses and purses are called wallets. And women carry these wallets inside their purses.
Clearly the definitions between these different English variants don't allign.
Handbags
This isn't the whole story, however.
In American fashion, 'handbag' is used alongside 'purse'. They aren't separate things (like they are in the UK).
Instead, they're differentiated by size. In their minds, 'handbag' is a good-sized, useful bag whereas a 'purse' is smaller and designed for fashion rather than utility.
So basically, this kind of American purse isn't a British purse and is barely a British handbag.
Wallets
In Britian, wallets and purses have completely different designs from each other. Wallets are flat, folded, and fit in a pocket. Purses, meanwhile, are thick, bulky and certainly do not fit in women's pockets.
Some wallets are designed to carry things like passports and police warrant cards.
Like a regular wallet, these are flat and foldable, fit inside a pocket and contain identification. They fulfil all wallet criteria except for money.
(As with anything, something doesn't have to fulfil all criteria to be counted as part of something. Think languages, ethnicities, mental health disorders etc.)
This modern meaning for wallet is from the 1800s.
'Wallet' in the 14th century meant 'bag' or 'knapsack'. Shakespeare used it to mean 'backpack' in the 16th century.
So, handbags are historically more analogous to wallets than to purses. So if the name either of these money-holders was to be used for a handbag, the expectation certainly shouldn't be 'purse'!
Purse
The word 'purse' comes from Old English 'purs', descending ultimately from the Ancient Greek 'byrsa'. This 'byrsa', translating as '(animal) hide, leather', was designed to hold coins.
Modern day British purses still carry money/coins (whether cards and/or cash). So the UK purpose for the purse matches the Ancient Greek/Latin purpose for the purse. The American version does not.
Murse/Man-Purse
In America, men can have purses, called a 'man-purse' or a 'murse'.
In design, murses are indestinguishable from already-existing satchels or messenger bags.
Satchels carry books. Messenger bags carry post ('mail' in America) and, more recently, clothing. Both are worn like a purse, rather than on the back like other bags.
Murses are used to carry everything a purse, satchel and messenger bag carries.
Why call It a 'murse'?
A murse has the purpose of purses, satchels and messenger bags, but can look like the latter two. But both designs have purse-purpose added to them. So the addition of purse-purpose is the commonality between them.
There's no handy way to modify 'satchel' or 'messenger bag' to mean also the other, plus purse. But mixing purse with 'man' indicates all three. Not perfect, but it works.
Can Americans resist calling any kind of bag a purse? They already did it with handbags. Why not with satchels and messenger bags, too?
Besides, male and female money-holders (wallets) also have utterly differently designs. Maybe this unisex mindset extended to bags for personal items (purses), too.
Man-Bag
In the UK, men don't have a murse but they do have a man-bag.
They're small and are designed like bumbags ('fanny pack' in America'). They are worn like a murse. They carry everything a handbag would.
However, their size means they can't carry what a satchel or messenger bag does. So if any kind of male bag were to have a purse-like name, one wpuld expect it to be a man-bag.
Final Thoughts
It boils down to a simple UK-US distinction.
In the UK, terminology for this is based upon design, hence tending to male/female-specific words.
In the USA, terminology for this is based on purpose, hence tending to unisex words.
All this is about the names of objects used to transport money securely.
Money-holders (wallets/purse) carry money. Money-carriers (handbags/purses) carry money-holders. When these objects were renamed, the new terms were an already-related term.
The female money-holder was given the name of the male money-holder (purse to wallet), becoming unisex.
The money-carrier was given the name of female money-holder (handbag to purse).
The male money-holder was given an altered name of the female money-holder (satchel/messenger bag to man-purse), also becoming unisex.
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