Custom Licence Plates — Seen in the Wild

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1981

Saw MGICMOM on the way home today. Magic Mom?

1982

One of the shortest personal plates I’ve ever seen, just now — NK

1983

Yesterday and today I made the reverse road trip. 650 miles of interstate and a bunch of state highway and city driving. Got a new collection:

  • JAWS⎵III on Maine plates. Maybe they have shark problems up in Maine?

  • MTNDOVE on New Hampshire plates. Is there a Mount Dove in NH?

  • KIDZ MD; evidently a pediatrician.

  • 1⎵BADD⎵B on a generic white pickup.

  • YOBYBYO on a car with a kappa alpha psi license plate frame on the back and a kappa alpha psi decorative plate on the front. Making me suspect the plate itself represents some one of their secret phrases or something. An inside reference to his frat-mates. Or not?

  • ICE⎵TWO on a family wagon driven by a soccer mom. She might be rethinking keeping that plate about now.

  • DRUSKA. Somebody’s last name?

  • TESSY⎵1 on a Tesla Model S driven by a 40-ish woman. Is her name Tess too?

  • IRON⎵TOY on a fairly gussied up Harley Davidson motorcycle.

  • CWOG on an NY plate. Perhaps Chief Warrant Officer with a last name G-something?

  • SMURFF on a dark blue Tesla Model S. It wasn’t a very Smurfly shade, but I get the idea.

  • 717 DC8 on Nevada plates. Those may well be ordinary series plates, but the existence of the McDonnell Douglas DC8 & MD-95 later renamed to Boeing 717 made this interesting to me at least. If it isn’t a series plate, the owner is somehow related to Douglas airliners from the early 1960s to the late 1990s.

  • CRMTZND. WTF? I am pretty sure I got the letters correct.

  • CUJO on a very ratty and filthy early 1990s Honda CR-X. Not a very aggressive car to carry that very aggressive name.

  • 5ICILY. Evidently proud of their Italian heritage.

  • PRO⎵BOG1 on an SUV driven by a 40-something woman. Pro for professional maybe, but what’s the bog? Short for bogger, as in offroad mud-bogging maybe? The SUV was clean and not off-road equipped. No suggestive stickers either. A mystery.

  • FRANCY1 on a white pickup driven by a hefty 50ish dude who looked like he worked outdoors for a living. Maybe his given name is Francis? I know I’m not gonna give him any crap about it.

  • G⎵GIRLS on a Hummer SUV driven by a 50ish guy with a scraggly white beard. Looked more counterculture artsy type than mountain man or axe murderer. “Good girls?” G is the 7th letter so maybe “7 daughters”? Otherwise I got no clue.

  • FLY BELA on a Suburban or equivalent mongo SUV driven by a 50-something woman who looked like the stereotypical aging and now matronly flight attendant. Named Bela perhaps?

  • PAULA⎵35 on a Maserati GranTurismo Trofeo - Wikipedia. Paula is indeed about 35 and very good looking. Happy birthday to her from somebody; perhaps herself.

  • J NUNZ. Probably short for Nunzio or similar last name.

  • PATRO on yet another generic white pickup truck. No stickers or plate frames to give context. Maybe short for “patriotic”? Or short for an Italian name like Patronelli or something.

  • GALICIA. More proud Italians.

All in all a good haul for about 12 hours of driving.

1984

Correction:

  • GALICIA. More proud Italians Spaniards hiding amongst the Italians. :wink:
1985

MICOLO which may be a bad phrase in Spanish.

1986

Perhaps an out and proud fan of the Golden Girls tv show?

1987

Saw PENS FAN this morning. We’re nowhere near Pittsburgh but there’s a surprising amount of Penguins fans here.

Also saw PRLJAM in the parking garage.

1988

Last night I saw NDORFAN. At first I thought it meant “Nandor fan”, like that’s their favorite character on What We Do in the Shadows. But then I thought maybe it’s supposed to sound like “Endorphin”?

1989

Maybe they just like being indoors.

1990

Or they had good taste and liked the TV series Andor.

1991

On an F-150 pickup: CBLGUY No commercial marking on the truck so perhaps a fan of Larry the Cable Guy.

On an Arizona Highways plate: BAGHDAD. Possibly referring to the Iraqi capital but given the plate, company town Bagdad, Arizona (without the H) named after the city by people without a gazetteer handy.

1992

LVNDRHZ which I assume is Lavender Haze. I was also expertly cut off by a minivan with MERLIN.

1993

GILLIAN may want to watch out for the the TOPG8R. That later one had a Florida Gators emblem on the plate, so I assume they meant the Gators are the Top, not that they were the top player on the team.

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1994

Maybe they meant they were the President (or whatever appropriate head honcho title) of the university.

1995

Utah handicapped plate: PINKIE

Little finger, nickname, or looking for The Brain, who knows?

Also, customized but not with text, an ASU “Sparky” plate with red rhinestones glued to the larger letters and a few yellow ones scattered about. No image as the current plate is the Fear the Fork design which is mostly black.

1996

Certainly possible, but it was not a Florida plate, so unlikely they were actually that (maybe it is aspirational).

It was not an EV but at lot of cars do mostly run on SFTWARE these days. And the pick up truck was certainaly BIG␣N␣UF I thought. The Mets fan (based on a sticker) is probably likely from NU␣YRK. I suppose that P5LM091 is appropriate to keep in mind while you are driving around, especially if there any reckless drivers about.

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1997

Yesterday I saw a University of Miami booster plate. Those only hold 5 characters. The text was UM1US.

“University of Miami is #1 with us?” “We and the University of Miami are one?” Something like that.

1998

“Miami is #1 in the US?”

1999

I have a feeling I know where the man I saw driving the CH3NAI is from, or where he hopes he was anyway.

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2000

BLUHIPO. The car was, in fact, bright blue, and rather 'potomal in shape.