People are confusing the part they should edit with the part they shouldn't, so let's make the example values a little more self-evident.

git-svn-id: http://svn.automattic.com/wordpress/trunk@5001 1a063a9b-81f0-0310-95a4-ce76da25c4cd

wp-admin/setup-config.php

@@ -157,13 +157,13 @@ switch($step) {
 	foreach ($configFile as $line_num => $line) {
 		switch (substr($line,0,16)) {
 			case "define('DB_NAME'":
-				fwrite($handle, str_replace("wordpress", $dbname, $line));
+				fwrite($handle, str_replace("putyourdbnamehere", $dbname, $line));
 				break;
 			case "define('DB_USER'":
-				fwrite($handle, str_replace("'username'", "'$uname'", $line));
+				fwrite($handle, str_replace("'usernamehere'", "'$uname'", $line));
 				break;
 			case "define('DB_PASSW":
-				fwrite($handle, str_replace("'password'", "'$passwrd'", $line));
+				fwrite($handle, str_replace("'yourpasswordhere'", "'$passwrd'", $line));
 				break;
 			case "define('DB_HOST'":
 				fwrite($handle, str_replace("localhost", $dbhost, $line));

wp-config-sample.php

@@ -1,8 +1,8 @@
 <?php
 // ** MySQL settings ** //
-define('DB_NAME', 'wordpress');    // The name of the database
-define('DB_USER', 'username');     // Your MySQL username
-define('DB_PASSWORD', 'password'); // ...and password
+define('DB_NAME', 'putyourdbnamehere');    // The name of the database
+define('DB_USER', 'usernamehere');     // Your MySQL username
+define('DB_PASSWORD', 'yourpasswordhere'); // ...and password
 define('DB_HOST', 'localhost');    // 99% chance you won't need to change this value
 define('DB_CHARSET', 'utf8');
 define('DB_COLLATE', '');