Sweden - It's a bird. It's a plane, but it's not Superman.

At least not in Sweden, where a couple who wanted to name their child after the comic book hero found the law harder to bend than the man of steel himself.

The tax authority, which oversees rules for names in the Scandinavian country of 8.9 million, nixed a request by Sara Lindenger and her live-in boyfriend, Johan Leisten, both 28, to name their child Staalman, Superman in Swedish.

"We wanted to call him David Rune Staalman Leisten," Lindenger told The Associated Press Tuesday. "It would be much worse to be called 'Fantomen' (or the Phantom) or Tarzan."

The authority said it wasn't suitable because it might "lead to discomfort for the person who uses it."

Lindenger and Leisten appealed the decision to the county administrative court in their hometown of Goteborg, 296 miles southwest of Stockholm, but it was denied. They haven't decided whether to appeal.