Figuring out why certain vanity license plates have been rejected by the New Hampshire Department of Motor Vehicles can be obvious or perplexing, depending on the message.

A Loudon driver, for example, requested “PRO420,” a reference to marijuana. It did not pass the decency test.

Someone from Tamworth wanted to drive around with “-WKDPSA” on his or her license plate. The DMV shot it down.

A Nashuan wanted “NH-911” on a license plate but was rejected.

Of the 2,600 people living in New Durham someone was fond of “COWFLAP,” but to no avail.

The rules for New Hampshire vanity plates are set by the legislature and enforced by the DMV. Among things that can’t be referred to “in any language, whether read forward, backward, by mirror image or by phonetic spelling” are “intimate body parts or genitals,” “sexual or excretory acts or functions,” “profanity,” “violence,” “illegal activities,” “drugs,” “gangs,” and “hatred or bigotry.”

New Hampshire checked all of those boxes last year.

The Monitor made a public records request and compiled a list of personalized license plate applications rejected by the state in 2018 for “not being in accordance with administrative rules.” 

Each denied plate tells a story. Take “FOOBAR,” the plate requested by a Hopkinton resident, or “NHBASS,” a plate from Hampton Falls that doesn’t seem too fishy outside of an unfortunate three-letter combination. 

Rochester led the charge for cities with the dirtiest imaginations. It had the most rejections of any: 7 of the state’s 106 denied plates. The DMV didn’t give up any secrets into how workers decode some of these requests, or if they simply type each request into the online urban dictionary.

Within the profane and crass vanity plate requests, there seem to be some themes. For instance, many focused on a certain male body part, others made cultural references, like “REDRUM,” which was rejected presumably because of its reference to violence and not the film The Shining. Some seem fine until you imagine them reflected in your window, like “3M-TA3,” while others appeared to be born of the imagination of a middle school boy like “POOPYHD.”

Others were rejected for less clear reasons, like the request from Chester for “QQQQ”.

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