May 7 is World Password Day. To learn more about passwords, and simplifying the passwords in your life, go to PasswordDay.org

On Nov. 20, 2014, The New York Times Magazine published “The Secret Life of Passwords.” It was an examination of the humanity that often hides in a simple string of characters, and a reflection on why we imbue these codes with meaning when told not to. A motivational mantra, a swipe at the boss, an ode to a lost love, an inside joke with ourselves, a defining emotional scar — there was something captivating, inspiring even, in these tchotchkes of our inner lives.

In writing that article, I mined for passwords every chance I got: sitting in the doctor’s waiting room, riding Amtrak, filling that awkward lull during Thanksgiving dinner with in-laws. I interviewed several hundred people, most of them strangers. A surprising number were willing to take a broad leap of faith and give me not just the codes that they are never supposed to reveal, but also the emotional secret inside that makes these codes personal.

I met for coffee with a former prisoner to discuss why his password

included what used to be his inmate identification number

(“A reminder not to go back,” he offered).

I gently pressed a woman at the park about her having discovered her son’s password (“Lamda1969”) after he committed suicide, and her realization, painfully late, that he had been gay.

I emailed with a fallen-away Catholic who told me how his passwords incorporated the Virgin Mary (“It’s secretly calming,” he confessed).

Stuck on a tarmac, I sat next to a childless 45-year-old woman who eventually revealed to me that her password was the name of the baby boy she lost in utero (“My way of trying to keep him alive, I guess,” she said).

Entrancing in their own right, these gems also hinted at something larger: how humans are creative and sentimental creatures, what drives us to quirky routines, and why we turn shackles into art. The New York Times Magazine and Medium ran stories on the topic.

Readers began offering their own backstories behind their old passwords, 15 of which are below: