CHICAGO – The Illinois Secretary of State’s Office received more than 60,000 requests for vanity or personalized license plates in 2024. Of those, 335 (or 0.0055%) requests were denied for profanity or other reasons for ineligibility.

According to state law, the secretary of state’s office has the authority to reject any vanity or personalized plate that “creates a connotation that is offensive to good taste and decency.”

Secretary of State Alexi Giannoulias said his office flags combinations of letters and numbers that can be interpreted as lewd or lascivious, or contain expletives, racial epithets, references to sex and drugs or allusions to violence. Vanity plates contain only letters, while personalized plates are a combination of letters and numbers.

“Illinoisans consistently display a great deal of creativity when choosing their customized license plates, but the plates that hit the road must meet the standards of good taste and decency,” Giannoulias said. “Our team [is] well-versed in lecherous language and sneaky swearing, all of which are rejected and placed on our permanent prohibited list.”

That ever-growing list contains more than 8,000 license plate combinations.

The top rejected plate requests this year include: HOKTUAH, GYATT, MUNCH, BICHIN, JAGWEED, BADARSE, AXEHOLE, ILLCUTU, HOHOHOE, ABADMF, WEENIE, DUCKOFF, SHIDDED, UGEWANG, and THICCAF. Giannoulias said some plates are rejected if they’re difficult to read, such as MWMWMWM or OOQQOO.

At present, more than 811,000 registered vehicles in Illinois have vanity or personalized license plates—294,3324 vanity plates; 531,035 personalized plates.

Illinoisans can use the Pick-A-Plate feature on the Secretary of State’s website to try out different combinations of letters and/or letters and numbers to see if it’s available for purchase as a vanity or personalized plate. New vanity plates cost $94 and personaized plates are $47.