Which female names are used as passwords most often?

NordPass has compiled a list of female names that are used as passwords most often. According to the research, an incredibly large number of people use their own or their female relatives’ names as their password. The most popular ones are “ashley,” “nicole,” and “jessica.”

The list corresponds quite well with the top female names in the US. For example, Ashley is the 17th most popular name over the last 100 years. Nicole is 39th, and Jessica is 8th.

“While choosing your own, your girlfriend’s, or daughter’s name as a password might seem a good idea as you’ll never forget it, it’s also a great way to make a hacker’s job easier. As it’s a very obvious choice, the victim’s or their relative’s name will be one of the first options hackers will try,” says Ruby Gonzalez, head of communications at NordVPN. “People also shouldn’t use any other obvious choices, such as their address, favorite band, sports team, pet’s name, the word “password,” and any alternations of it.”

However, it is also worth mentioning that some of these most popular passwords are likely to be chosen by younger generations, who use technology more often. For example, the name Taylor only started appearing in the top name lists  in the 1980s. Meanwhile, Patricia, although the second most popular name overall, was only in the tops from 1910s to 2000s. Therefore, the reason why we don’t see Patricia being used widely as a password, might be that Patricias are likely to use technology less. In addition to that, one of the most popular passwords is jordan23, which we can assume is used by 23-year-olds.

Late in 2019, NordPass published the full list of 200 most popular passwords. Independent researchers, who chose to stay anonymous, have gathered the most common passwords that were leaked in various data leaks in 2019. 

“If you find your password among the most popular ones, you should change it immediately. It’s always a good idea to use a password generator to create a truly strong password and make sure it has not been breached before,” says Ruby Gonzalez, head of communications at NordVPN.