The above numbers don’t make a huge amount of sense, considering the 9.3 million statistic. But this is based on the data I have been given — which is incomplete — from 30 different states.
For a better sense of scale over time, check out the below figures for Tennessee (who provided the data to me).
Vanity Plate Data by State
| STATE | Vanity Total 2012 | Vanity Total 2019 | ||
| Maine | 107,415 | 110,494 | ||
| Arizona | 68,710 | 358,578 | ||
| Utah | tk | 68,569 | ||
| New Hampshire | tk | 152,058 | ||
| Michigan | tk | 371,257 | ||
| Indiana | 91,328 | 103,565 | ||
| Minnesotta | 81,621 | 97,475 | ||
| Virginia | 1,013,645 | 980,245 | ||
| Kansas | 5,968 | 74,835 | ||
| Colorado | 51,462 | tk | ||
| Texas | 165,559 | tk |
A note on the data: This data has been collected via FOIA requests from every state in the US. Not every state responded (I’m still following up with them) and and many that did said they did not HAVE this data to share — often they could only provide data for one or two years, and sometimes they conflated vanity plates and speciality license plate data together. Where I lack official data I have used news reports from prior years via reputable sources. Eventually, this will be a perfect accounting, but until then, it’s as accurate as I can make it.
Extra note: The data from 2007 as used by Lonce does not always match up with the data provided by the state as of now. In these cases, I am using the state data, not Lonce’s.
Vanity Plate Data 