How to find your perfect private number plate with Regtransfers Search
Finding the perfect personalised registration plate can seem a little daunting. Our website offers the widest choice of top quality personal number plates in the UK, but where do you start?
You may already have an idea: perhaps you fancy your name, nickname or your initials on your number plate. Maybe you want something relevant to your business or career, or to your hobby or favourite football team. On the other hand, you may like the thought of a private registration but have no real idea of what you'd like on it. Either way, we're here to help.
Where to find what you want
Watch our video on how to use Regtransfers search!
There are two main ways to find your perfect registration number on our website. Firstly, you can visit our specialist search page to browse our themed collections and searches. We have many number categories on themes such as sports, car makes and models, names and much more.
Alternatively, you can type your search term into the search box found on our homepage, and at the top of many other pages on this site.
Getting the most from search
Let's run through an example of a typical search.
A customer named Jenny Danby is looking for a number plate. She's not quite sure what she wants, but she likes the idea of a name registration.
Let's start by typing Jenny's whole name, "Jenny Danby", into our search. Then we click/tap the magnifying glass button or hit 'Enter' on our keyboard.
Immediately, we see a selection of results based on the name
J3 NNY is a perfect match for the first name. There are also some great matches for her surname, such as D4 NBY and DAN 13Y. You'll also see two matches for "J Danby" at the top of the results column. That's a great start!
A lot of people like to add the letters Z or S to the end of a name. When added to a given name it gives a sense of ownership (JE11 NYZ for "Jenny's"), and added to a surname it conveys a sense that a couple or a family use the car (DA11 BYS for Jenny's family, the "Danbys").
J311 NYD is a great way to represent Jenny's given name and her last initial, "Jenny D".
Don't ignore registrations that have an extra letter or digit. They often still do a great job of representing the name and they can be far more affordable than perfect spellings. D44 NBY and JE11 NYY are great examples of this.
Widening choice
Our search tool is intelligent enough to suggest ideas and variations that might be suitable. There are some great JD plates here for Jenny’s initials. There is even a birth year plate that matches the year Jenny was born, 1990 JD!
(Note: the page number links with "Previous" and "Next" buttons mean that there are more pages of results to view in that section.)
Handy tip: Dateless plates
If a registration starts or ends with a number (like 1990 JD mentioned above), it is known as a "dateless" plate because it's in a format that doesn't contain a year code. Dateless plates can go on any age of vehicle, unlike plates with a year letter or a year number code, which may not be used to make a car appear newer than it really is.
Nicknames are another very popular choice. Jenny's family and friends usually call her "Jen", so we can look for JEN plates too. When the results page appears, we scroll down and see F26 JEN. Jenny’s birthday is on the 26th of February so that would be a great choice: still very personal, but not quite as conspicuous as a plate that spells her full name.
Date or no date?
Registrations beginning or ending with a number are called "dateless". F26 JEN begins and ends with letters, so it isn't dateless. In fact, the F at the beginning is the date code for 1988. As it is the first character on the plate the registration is called a date prefix registration, or simply a prefix registration.
A number plate showing a date code can only be put on a car from the same year that registration was first issued, or afterwards. It cannot be put on an older car, as that could mislead people to believe that the car is younger than its true age. The law doesn't permit that.
You can find out more about date codes on our number plate formats information page.
Adding a middle initial is another way to expand the options returned by your search even more. Jenny’s middle initial is D so we’ll enter JDD into the search. As you can see, initials give an excellent selection of options, and these are just the first few of many.
Other options
Of course, names and initials aren't the only registration themes we have to offer. Private number plates can reflect your personality, your hobbies, career, favourite sports team, the car you drive and much more.
We can probably find you a personal registration that's relevant to pretty much anything you may want.
Let's take a popular hobby and career as an example. Baking shows are everywhere on TV these days, and lots of people are taking it up as a hobby, a sideline or even their main business. A baking-themed number plate could express one's love for making cakes, or it could help to publicise a baking business.
Even something as general as the word "bake" produces some very specific and relevant suggestions. W4 FER, BAT 73R are both excellent registrations that can be read at a glance.
Picking another topic at random, maybe you're a Star Wars fan. simply type the name of your favourite sci-fi franchise into the search box and, once again, relevant suggestions are returned instantly.
No car? No problem
For people who are not ready to transfer a personal registration to their car, we can provide the registration on a special certificate that enables you to keep the registration stored until you're ready to assign it to a vehicle.
This option is often used by collectors who may buy more registrations than the number of cars they own. It's also used by people who may want to buy a registration that's too young for their current car, as they can then hold the registration on certificate until they get a newer car. This option is also great for people who want to snap up their desired registration before someone else buys it, but don't yet have a car to display it on.
Our page on transferring number plates explains more about these certificates.
Share this...