Peking, a nickname for Norrköping

A girl asked me the other day why it says that I'm from Peking, Sweden in the 'About Me' section of this blog and if that was because I'd lived there or something like that. The truth is actually far from that, but possibly a bit more interesting.

Peking is an old local nickname from the town I'm from in Sweden, Norrköping. The literal translation of Norrköping is norr = north, köping = market town, so Norrköping would pretty much be North Town today. The town got it's nickname Peking from a lecture held by a Swedish explorer in one of the secondary grammar schools in Norrköping. His name was Sven Hedin and he held the lecture in 1910. He was telling the students about his travels in China and Peking and explained that Peking literally means "Northern Capital", which is something Wikipedia at least agrees with. He also told them that Nanking meant southern city and as it happens south of Norrköping there is a town called Söderköping (söder = south), unfortunately for Söderköping (or maybe fortunately, what do I know) the Nanking nickname didn't stick, however Peking has stuck with Norrköping over the years.

So although the girl I spoke to the other day told me that Peking didn't mean "northern capital" that is still where the nickname came from originally. At least according to a small handbook called "The handbook to the art of enjoying norrköping" put together by the municipality of Norrköping. In my humble opinion it matters little who is actually correct about the meaning behind the name Peking though, what does matter to me is where Norrköping got the nickname from.