Tax board not happy with Metallica

It's a case of exit light, enter night for the couple who thought they had won the right to name their daughter Metallica. The Swedish tax board has refused to accept the County Court's verdict and is now taking the case to the Administrative Court of Appeal.

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After months of sleeping with one eye open, gripping her pillow tight, Metallica's mother thought the fight for her daughter's name was finally over.

"It feels really mean," Karolina Tomaro told newspaper Göteborgs Tidningen.

The couple from Kungälv in western Sweden had not originally anticipated any difficulties, since Sweden already has one other girl registered under the name Metallica. In fact, they had gone so far as to check with the authorities on two separate occasions that the name would not pose a problem.

But they ran into trouble when they tried to actually register the name. The tax board refused them permission on the grounds that Metallica is the name of a heavy metal band and is too closely related to the word "metal".

The tax board viewed the fact that Sweden already has a female Metallica as irrelevant, as the decision to authorize the name may have stemmed from a simple oversight on their part.

"Not all of the associations generated by the name are flattering," the tax board wrote in its appeal.

But Metallica's mother, who considers the name unusual, beautiful and wholly appropriate for her obstinate little girl, failed to grasp the tax board's logic.

"I don't understanding their reasoning at all. She's six months old and is already able to say her name. We can't just change it now," she said.

The protracted saga has meant that Tomaro has been unable to bring her daughter to visit her family in Germany. As she cannot get a passport without an authorized first name, Metallica is effectively tied to Sweden.

"We had to cancel trips at Christmas and Easter. Now we have booked a trip for the summer. Maybe we'll have to cancel that too," said Karolina Tomaro.