reflecting their date of birth. In this fashion, fictional Mrs , born 2 May 1965 and living in , might choose E-UM 2565 for her car. By combining area code and random letters, further possibilities arise, such as a man from Oldenburg named Olaf, born on Christmas Eve, could choose OL-AF 2412. A resident of the town of Pirna might choose PIR-AT 77, meaning “pirate” in German. is one of few places where the number plate can spell out all of the city name. BMW, owner of Mini, registers all Mini press/marketing cars in the district of which holds the code MI, to get “MI-NI” number plates for the cars. BMW itself is based in Munich, yet M-INI plates are not possible to issue, as three letters after the district code are not permitted. From 1970s up to 1994, Essen city buses owned by city transport company EVAG (Essener Verkehrs-AG) were registered with E-AT number plates, essen means "to eat" in German. These vanity plates can only be made up of the available prefixes and numbers, within the general rules. A James Bond fan from Hamburg would not be allowed the plate HH-JB 007 because leading digits 0 (or even double-0) are not possible; however, he might strive for HH-J 8007 or HH-OO 7, imitating digits by letters or vice versa. The owner of a Volkswagen Polo can certainly show VW in the middle section, but neither PO-LO 1995 nor VW-P0 L01 would be possible, as these prefixes are not issued nor may letters and digits be mixed at will. Nonetheless, a notable variety of personalised number plates can be spotted on German roads. Prohibited combinations Combinations that are regarded as a , which means “offence to moral and customs”, are disallowed or otherwise avoided. This refers mostly to abbreviations relating to Nazi Germany, such as NS (National Socialism), KZ (, concentration camp), HJ (, Hitler Youth), SS (Schutzstaffel) and SA (Sturmabteilung). Therefore, these two-letter combinations are generally not issued in any district, nor do the city districts of Nuremberg, Cologne and Stuttgart issue one-letter plates which would result in the combinations N-S, K-Z, S-A, S-D and S-S. Those prefixes which will not be issued as middle letters were also excluded from the list of possible area codes with the introduction of the current system, although between 1945 and 1949 the French occupation force had used the combination SA followed