Suffix style registrations, also known as personal number plates, were introduced by the DVLA in February 1963, as they were running out of dateless combinations to use, having already issued millions of vehicle registration marks across the country. It also increased customer protection since the key attribute of the personal number plate is that it would now be easy to identify the age of a vehicle. They use the structure BBB*A, where A is a letter which represents the period that the vehicle was first registered, and * is a 1-3 digit number. This style is the reverse of its successor the Prefix style, which follows the format A*BBB. Suffix style registrations cannot incorporate the letters I, Q or Z; O and U can only appear in the first three letters.

Suffix style registrations were initially released annually and were issued between 1st January and 31st December of each year. This changed with the introduction of the F-registrations on 1st August 1967, which started the annual release of registrations in the period 1st August - 31st July.

Personal number plates are often used as an alternative to the more expensive dateless style and will suit the more historical makes of vehicle in the UK. They are also often used as cover plates to hide the age of a vehicle. They can be used to emphasise initials or abbreviated words, such as DKH222T or KRS751V. Occasionally they are used to emphasise a name, such as RAJ84C or HEL6H. They are also used to spell out an entire word (TER122Y).