The Most Popular Women of Naruto

Naruto ran for over seven hundred episodes across two series, and somewhere in all that filler and all those hand signs, it built a roster of women that people will not stop arguing about. Search any of their names and you will find a hundred ranked lists, a thousand forum threads, and one official poll that we think got the whole thing wrong.

So here is ours. We did this once already for the most popular women of One Piece and the comments still have not cooled off, so we are running it back with Naruto. Six kunoichi, ranked from the bottom of our hearts to the top. Fair warning, this is not the popularity poll order. We rank by who we actually want to see on screen, not by who moved the most merch. If that makes you mad, good. Argue with us. That is the entire point.

6. Sakura Haruno

Somebody had to be last, and the internet is going to lose its mind that it is her. Sakura placed fourth in the entire world in the official NARUTOP99 poll, ahead of every other woman on this list. We do not care. To us she is the most annoying character in the franchise, and it is not close.

For the first half of the series her whole personality is screaming Sasuke's name and treating Naruto like dirt. The kid is an orphan with no friends, and she spends years mocking him while throwing herself at a guy who tries to kill her more than once. Yes, she trains under Tsunade and becomes a top medical ninja with a punch that splits the ground. We know. Even her own creator has said he regrets how he wrote her. When the man who invented you publicly apologizes for the job, you have earned the bottom spot. Sorry Sakura.

5. Kushina Uzumaki

Here is the most underrated woman on this list, and a lot of you are reading that name thinking, who? That is exactly the problem. Kushina is Naruto's mother, and unless you really paid attention, you barely know she exists, because she shows up almost entirely in flashbacks.

She came from the Uzumaki clan, she was the host of the Nine-Tailed Fox before Naruto ever was, and she had a temper that earned her the nickname the Red-Hot Habanero after she beat up every kid who made fun of her red hair. At the end she took a death blow from that same fox to shield her newborn son. She is the reason Naruto exists, she is where he got the loud mouth and the never-quit attitude, and the show treats her like a footnote. We are bumping her up out of pure respect.

4. Temari

Now we are into the women we actually like. Temari is the oldest of the Sand Siblings, big sister to Gaara, and she carries herself with a cool, unbothered confidence. While everybody else is yelling about friendship, Temari is standing there with a giant iron fan, half bored, ready to flatten a forest with one swing.

And yes, we have to talk about the hair. Those four-pointed ponytails are an all-time anime hairstyle. It should not work and it absolutely does. She is sharp, she is confident, she does not chase anybody, and she ends up marrying Shikamaru, which means she looked at the laziest genius in the village and decided she would do the choosing. That is the energy we respect. Temari never needed saving and never asked permission. Number four, earned on attitude alone.

3. Hinata Hyuga

This is the one a lot of guys will tell you is the best girl in all of anime, and they have a case. Hinata is the quiet one, the Hyuga heiress with the Byakugan, the girl who spent the whole series loving Naruto from a distance while he was too dense to notice.

Here is the thing we will just say out loud. We all wanted her, and we all thought Naruto did not deserve her. She stood up to the strongest villain in the series to protect a guy who could barely remember she was there, and she did it without asking for any credit. By the end she gets her happy ending, marries Naruto, and becomes the mother of Boruto and Himawari. Good for her. Bad for the rest of us. The loyalty, the soft-spoken strength, the fact that she never gave up on a lost cause, that is why she lands at three, and that is why half the fandom still has not gotten over it.

2. Tsunade

Now the top two, where we split from the rest of the internet completely. At number two is Tsunade, and we will not get much argument on this one. She is one of the Legendary Sannin, the Fifth Hokage, the granddaughter of the First Hokage, and the greatest medical ninja the world has ever seen. She also walks around looking thirty when she is actually in her fifties, because she keeps a transformation jutsu running around the clock out of pure vanity. Honestly, respect.

We will be grown-ups about the obvious. Tsunade is built, the show never once lets you forget it, and the running joke about her figure has been with the franchise since day one. We like her for a lot more than that. She is a leader who carried Konoha through a war, and the mentor who turned Sakura into a powerhouse. Strength, brains, and presence, the total package. The only reason she is not number one is that our hearts belong to somebody the show forgot about.

1. Tenten

Number one, our favorite, and the whole reason this list is not just a copy of the popularity poll. Tenten. If you forgot she was even in the show, that is not your fault, it is the show's fault. Tenten is the weapons specialist of Team Guy, the one who pulls an endless arsenal of blades and chains out of her scrolls, and she is the single most disrespected character in the entire franchise.

Think about it. Her teammates were Rock Lee and Neji, and both of them got huge arcs and unforgettable fights. Tenten got a loss to Temari in the Chunin Exams and then spent the next several hundred episodes holding everybody's coats. We barely even get a backstory for her. Her one big dream was to become a legendary kunoichi like Tsunade, and the writers quietly never followed up on it.

That is why she is number one for us. She is the underdog, the one who showed up, did the work, never got the spotlight, and never complained about it. Every overlooked, underrated, deserves-better character in anime lives in Tenten. The popularity poll can keep its order. At the Headquarters, the weapons girl finally finishes first.

The Headquarters has spoken, and we ranked them by heart instead of by hype. Tenten has finally earned her crown.