Many years ago I "bought" the plate, "Parus", the old genus name for chickadees (and still used for some of the Eurasian species). It still hangs in my garage. When it was actually on my car (an old beater VW bug), I think most folks thought it was a misspelling of "Paris" Or maybe it was Paris with a George Bush accent, I'm not sure...

Also, a neighbor on my block has the plate, "Strix", as in the owl genus, though it was not intended to have that meaning. I don't recall what their intention was in using the name, but they were surprized to learn the avian meaning!

Mark