Anchorage Daily News

No one's ever been able to guess commuter Melinda Jacobson's license plate:

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VLYCLS.

"They think it has something to do with vinyl, and they think it's maybe like a fetish thing or something," Jacobson supposed. (Have you guessed it yet? Keep reading.)

Every year, Alaskans have more and more vanity plates to puzzle over. The number grew 45 percent between 2001 and 2006.

One out of every 17 cars on the road has a personalized plate, and nearly one in 10 motorcycles.

Many plates, like VLYCLS, are six-letter mysteries for other drivers. Sometimes the answer is obvious. HWNGRL tells us the owner went to the University of Hawaii, while 2RED4U graces a crimson Cadillac.

Sometimes it's not so clear.

Motorists assume Peggy McBride's plate, DARTS, belongs to some barroom marksman. Case closed.

Really, she's director of an a capella women's chorus. Her plate is performer-speak for "Dressed And Ready To Sing."

Division of Motor Vehicles employees say the ability to order vanity plates online may have helped boost the numbers and even DMV registrar Carl Springer has one on his passenger van: BKIND.

Springer inherited it from his wife's late grandmother, who was known in Fairbanks for adopting stray cats, he said.

It's a hard plate to live up to in rush-hour gridlock.

"One day I was in traffic and it was kind of snarly, and I was kind of snarly," Springer said. Another driver saw him getting steamed and pointed to Springer's plate -- wasn't he supposed to "be kind?"

"I think I was hollering at somebody who cut me off," Springer said.

THE NO-NO LIST

To get your own vanity plate you can fill out a form at the DMV, listing your top three choices, or head to the division Web site and immediately see whether the plate you want is already taken. Or if it's just too naughty for the road.

The state has an ever-expanding database of words and letter combinations that are off limits.

"We call it the no-no list," said DMV administrative manager Stacy Oates.

After checking requests against the list, a committee reviews each would-be vanity plate to make sure there's nothing fishy or the plate doesn't say something nasty if read backward in a rearview mirror. Still, potentially offensive plates sometimes make it through.

Oates said her teenage daughter spotted one such escapee a couple years ago as they pulled into a parking lot. "She goes 'Oh my gosh, Mom, how come you allow that plate?"

It was BIATCH, which in the world of hip-hop is the same as another "B" word. It went on the no-no list.

Other plates look naughty, but they're really someone's last name. Remember that if you see TRAMP1 in the parking lot.

After a night of drinking with friends, Matt Cabana of Anchorage says he got his personalized plates just to test what the DMV Web site would allow. Most people think his choice is pretty funny, Cabana wrote in an e-mail.

"I've had responses from a soccer mom yelling at me, guys laughing or looking in the car thinking I'm a chick, old ladies hitting on me, and younger chicks driving by with no shirts on honking their horn."

Maybe you've seen Cabana's Chevy on the road. His plates say NAKED.

STINKY & PEOPLE EATER

Vanity plates cost an additional $30 and can include two to six letters and numbers. Spaces are OK, but symbols aren't. In Alaska, prisoners don't make plates. They're ordered from an Oregon company and can take up to 12 weeks to arrive.

Stacy Dayley got her specialized plates -- LV2TRI -- in less than two weeks.

The LV stands for "love" but it might as well be "live," she said. Dayley is crazy for triathalons.

After getting vanity plates, drivers start to notice them everywhere. Dayley was just puzzling over someone else's plate last week, she said. It read: PPLEPU.

That one belongs to Michelle Armstrong, who said men tend to think it means "purple people eater" but kids get it right away. It's a salute to her favorite cartoon character, Pepe LePew.

Speaking of smelly plates, PU is available but SKUNK is already taken.

So is STINKY, which belongs to Jennifer Wren, owner of a landscaping business. Certain a garbage company must have already claimed the plate, she was happy to learn it was available for one of her rigs.

Wren names all her trucks and "Stinky" got its name because the brakes locked up one day giving off a burning stench. Passersby see the plate and think her husband, who drives the truck, has an unfortunate nickname.

But what about Melinda Jacobson and the Buick with the VLYCLS plates? Would it help to know that Jacobson lives in the Mat-Su and took offense when locals started wearing "Proud to be Valley Trash" T-shirts?

Jacobson is simply standing up for her hometown of Wasilla.

VLYCLS = "Valley Class."

Daily News reporter Kyle Hopkins can be reached at khopkins@adn.com.

Alaska license plates

Between 2001 and 2006, the percentage of personalized license plates grew 45 percent and the number of personalized motorcycle plates almost doubled.

2001 plates

Total: 754,000

Personalized plates

Passenger cars: 17,674

Motorcycles: 1,222

Pickups: 7,718

Total personalized plates:26,614

2006 plates

Total 871,548

Personalized plates

Passenger cars: 24,330

Motorcycles:2,240

Pickups: 12,008

Total personalized plates: 38,578

*Private cars, as opposed to trucks or government vehicles

Source: Alaska Department of Motor Vehicles