Watch The Illinois Secretary Of State Read The Funniest Personalized License Plates That Got Denied This Year
What type of person gets a personalized license plate? As someone with one, I'd like to think that the people who get a personalized plate have a good sense of humor and want to make other people smile. I know, however, that some people use their personalized plates for evil, but Tennessee's supreme court found that personalized license plates are not protected free speech, so that's where censorship comes into play. Thankfully, at least some states choose to share their list of all the personalized license plate requests that were denied over the course of the preceding year. Illinois did just that yesterday, when it released a video of Illinois Secretary of State Alexi Giannoulias reading some of the funnier vanity plates that got denied.
According to the Illinois Secretary of State's office, it received over 55,600 requests for vanity and personalized license plates in 2025, and it had to deny over 550 of them "because the combinations were deemed inflammatory, profane, offensive, or too difficult to read."
From potty humor to more suggestive phrases
Due to the fact that I am an adult child, I find it hilarious to see someone as officious as the Illinois Secretary of State reading a selection of the immature phrases. From the classic middle school joke of asking someone to spell the word "ICUP" to the social media brainrot trend of adding "-ussy" onto the end of a word, like "PRIUSSY," it's so funny to see Secretary Giannoulias break down why these phrases got denied.
Some of the denied requests seem pretty benign to me, but I guess some people can be offended by asinine things so the state wants to err on the side of caution. I don't think BBL, a medical procedure, should be censored, and I also don't think IBPOOPN should be censored, but maybe Secretary Giannoulias never had the book "Everybody Poops" as a kid.
According to NBC Chicago, "A plate with a combination of letters and numbers will costs $47, while a vanity plate with all letters costs an extra $94, on top of the price of obtaining a plate in Illinois." Hopefully these denied vanity plate requests result in a refund, but for now let's laugh at some of the funnier ones.