History Main / VanityLicensePlate

->'''Margie:''' Hey, Lou, did you hear the one about the guy who couldn't afford personalized plates, so he changed his name to [=J3L=]-2404?\\
'''Lou:''' Ya, that's a good one.
-->-- ''Film/{{Fargo}}''

* Judy Hopps's [[CoolCar personalized Buick]] in ''Fanfic/{{Zistopia}}'' naturally has the license plate "THPPSMBL" (i.e., [[{{Thememobile}} The Hoppsmobile]]).

** BlobMonster Skip's [[https://archives.sluggy.com/book.php?chapter=73#2023-09-05 Civic]] bears the plate "JBL 13X", evoking [[Characters/DungeonsAndDragonsFiendsDemons Juiblex the Ooze Lord]].

** Vehicle Cargo missions in ''[[VideoGame/GrandTheftAutoV Grand Theft Auto Online]]'' are all about stealing [[RiceBurner gaudily modified]] sports cars, all of which have licence plates like [=PR3C10US=], [=2FA5T4U=], [=B1GM0N3Y=], [[MidlifeCrisisCar M1DL1F3]] and [[Creator/CharlieSheen W1NN1NG]], [[http://gta.wikia.com/wiki/Vehicle_Cargo#Target_Vehicles among many other "tasteful" examples]].
*** In addition, players can make their own custom plates for their owned vehicles. For the rare occasion that someone else is looking at your car and not, say, blowing it to pieces.

* Many jurisdictions in North America also have a provision for ham radio operators to get a license-plate with their radio call-sign on it. Some even feature the words "amateur radio" or the international ham-radio [[https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/2c/International_amateur_radio_symbol.svg/300px-International_amateur_radio_symbol.svg.png symbol]] on the plate as well. Unsurprisingly, vehicles with such a plate tend to be bristling with radio antennae attached to the vehicle-body. Many times, ham-radio operators are also given a '''discount''' on their license-plate fees because as amateur-radio operators they also perform a community-service during times of emergency (aiding in communications when the ordinary communication-channels are out-of-service).

** The official limousine used by the President of the United States historically reads "USA-1". In the past, it was a special U.S. federal government plate, but that changed to the standard District of Columbia plate. This led to a little bit of hilarity, as since 2000, DC plates have borne the provocative slogan "Taxation Without Representation" (protesting how DC residents pay federal income taxes but have no representation in Congress) -- you can pay to get plates without the slogan; only two presidents have done that so far: UsefulNotes/GeorgeWBush and UsefulNotes/DonaldTrump (who had the plates changed after two years in office).

** Washington DC police's practice of writing "no tags" on parking tickets of vehicles without license plates led to a single guy, who had DC plates reading "NO TAGS", getting thousands of dollars of fines every month and having to go to court every few months. An expose by a local TV station eventually led to the city's Department of Motor Vehicles to order police to stop the practice.

** Vanity plates are not allowed in UsefulNotes/{{India}}, and the sequence is generally "XX-12-1234" or "XX-12-XX-1234", with "XX" being the for the issuing state. The first two digits are the vehicle registration office number that is allocated to a certain district, but due to the heavy volume of vehicle registration in recent years, many of districts now have two or more vehicle registration offices. When the initial 9999 numbers are used up, the letter A is then added before the unique 4 digit number, and the cycle then repeats once the letter A is exhausted. In some states, the one or two letters also display what type of vehicle it is. While the last four digits are uniquely assigned to each vehicle, owners wanting a certain unique number such as 0001, 0786, or 3333 typically pay higher plate registration fees.

** In "[[Recap/RugratsS1E6RuthlessTommyMooseCountry Monster in the Garage]]", Tommy explores the garage to find the titular monster who has been wrecking it and giving Spike the blame. The license plate on the Pickles' car says "PKLS".

** In ''Film/KickAss2'', Hit Girl's motorcycle plate reads "HIT N RUN".