From ‘frietje’ to ‘Amen’, personalised number plates have never been more popular

It was a record year for personalised number plates, with 12,904 being requested in 2023. Even with a price tag of more than €1,000, the plates with letter and number combinations that you choose yourself are more popular than ever before. By comparison, normal plates costs less than €100.

Vehicle owners can ask for a specific combination of letters and numbers anytime they want. Plates can contain a maximum of eight characters, which must contain at least one letter. Of course a few rules apply.

“Unacceptable choices fall into one of two categories,” explains Thomas Despiegelaere of the federal department of mobility. “Combinations that could cause confusion with set classifications, such as those allotted to agricultural vehicles or motorcycles, are not allowed. The second category are words that could be offensive, such as referring to a terrorist group.”

Olivier got his personalised number plate six years ago. “I had bought a new car and thought ‘why not?’,” he told VRT. A funeral director, his first thought was to request RIP, “but that was maybe a bit confronting,” he admits. “Since I often drive to churches, I went with ‘Amen’. When I looked up the origins of the word, I discovered that it meant ‘It is so’. That quite appropriate, I think.”

Owner of a chip shop, Philip also chose to reflect his profession on his number plate. Though he originally wanted to honour his four kids by creating a word using the first letters of their names, the only word that emerged was jeuksel (itchy). So he turned to his frietkot instead. “My business is on a busy roundabout, and my car is always parked out front. Everyone likes it.”

Hobbies also figure heavily in personalised number plates. Heidi is a ‘geocacher’ – one of millions of people who take part in geocaching, which involves locating hidden containers around the world based on clues or GPS co-ordinates. Heidi has found some 17,000 of these caches.

Heidi has two personalised plates – one says Sterreke, her geocache profile name, and the other is Cacher-S. The first one has been on her campervan for years. “I had to pay €2,500 for it,” she says. “That’s a lot, but I absolutely wanted it. It has something about it. Now I’m not only known for my success in finding caches that are difficult to locate but also for my campervan.”

Sometimes personalised plates have far more emotional connections. Arn and Tamara bought their number plates three years ago. Five years before that, their son was undergoing a tonsillectomy when something went wrong with the supply of oxygen. He is now severely disabled.

They bought a van that could accommodate his wheelchair and thought about putting his name on the number plates. But they found that unfair to their daughter, so in the end they chose 4-SHS, which stands for Four Superheroes. “That’s how our family feels sometimes,” they said. “And it allowed us to connect something positive to it.”