Easy to remember doesn’t have to mean easy to guess
The passwords people remember easily — a pet’s name, a birthday, a favourite team — are exactly the ones attackers guess first. The trick is to keep the format memorable while making the content random. This generator picks four random words from a 7,776-word list, capitalises them and puts a random digit between each pair, producing something like Unfold4Pelican9Gravy2Stilt.
That format satisfies almost every website rule (uppercase, lowercase, number, 12+ characters) and gives about 62 bits of entropy — strong for any online account, especially combined with two-factor authentication.
3-word, 4-word or 5-word passwords?
- 3 words (about 45 bits with digits) — acceptable only where the service limits login attempts, such as a phone or a website with lockout. Use it for low-stakes accounts.
- 4 words (about 62 bits) — the recommended default for memorable passwords.
- 5–6 words (75–95 bits) — for anything that could be attacked offline, like an encrypted drive or a password manager. For these, our passphrase generator gives more options.
How to make it stick
- Tell a story. “Unfold the pelican, pour gravy on the stilt.” Absurd images are easier to recall.
- Remember the digits as a short number. 4-9-2 becomes “four-nine-two”.
- Practise it a few times right after creating it and again the next day.
Memorable passwords and password managers
You should only need to memorise a handful of passwords: your device login, your primary email, and the password manager itself. Everything else can be a long random password stored in the manager, which you never have to remember at all.
Last updated: · Reviewed by the Password Generator team