Iowa also has county names on their plates as well. I think it is probably a mix of:

1. that’s how we’ve always done it
2. kinda cool to see where people are from and display where you’re from
3. makes it easier to spot “out of place” cars for suspicion/police reasons (bleh, probably helpful in racial profiling too. pessimistic take…)

Also just guesses.

Yep, that’s me in there. I’m a Fedora KDE + Flatpak user.