If you’re looking for a last-minute idea for a Halloween costume, Google might just have you covered.
That’s because the tech giant’s Frightgeist search trend data has revealed the fancy dress outfits Americans have searched for most this year.
Top of the list are Ken and Barbie from the Box Office smash Barbie movie, which was released to huge fanfare back in July and has grossed more than $1.4billion (£1.1billion) worldwide.
Princesses, witches, fairies and Spider-Man round out the top five.
There are more than 900 costumes on Frightgeist but the company Visual Capitalist has put together an infographic showing the top 27 most-searched ideas.
Scary: Google’s Frightgeist search trend data shows the fancy dress outfits Americans have searched for most this year. Visual Capitalist put together an infographic showing the top 27
Top of the list are Ken and Barbie from the Box Office smash Barbie movie, which was released to huge fan fare back in July and has grossed more than $1.4billion (£1.1billion) worldwide. Pictured is Tale Of Tails actress Blanca Blanco as Barbie
Country pop singer Kelsea Ballerini stepped out in a Barbie-inspired pink crop top and flares for her Halloween bash in New York City last week
Most popular Halloween costumes
- Barbie
- Princess
- Spider-Man
- Witch
- Fairy
- Wednesday Addams
- Dinosaur
- Cowboy
- Ninja
- Bunny
- Rabbit
- Pirate
- Princess Peach
- Clown
- Pumpkin
- Batman
- Mermaid
- Cheerleader
- Ghost
- Bear
- Vampire
- Taylor Swift
- Harley Quinn
- Doll
- 1980s
- Cowgirl
- Toy Story
Among the other most popular costumes were Wednesday Addams – of Addams Family and Netflix show Wednesday fame – and people looking to dress up as dinosaurs, cowboys, ninjas, bunnies, pirates, clowns and pumpkins.
Princess Peach, from Nintendo’s Mario franchise, also made the top 15.
Swifties will be thrilled to hear that dressing up as Taylor Swift for Halloween was also a popular search, which comes hot on the heels of her re-recorded release of 1989, resumption of her Eras tour and new romance with NFL star Travis Kelce.
More common Halloween-themed costumes such as ghosts and vampires round out the top 30, while skeletons sit just outside it as the 32nd most searched outfit.
Batman, cheerleaders, bears, creepy dolls, cowgirls, Toy Story characters and DC Comics villain Harley Quinn also make the list.
Google said: ‘With Frightgeist, we went on a hunt to find the most popular Halloween costumes of 2023.
‘Pulling from the top 500 costume searches in the United States, Frightgeist used Google Trends to tell people what costumes were trending around them and help them find a costume that was sure to turn heads.’
The tech giant allows people to either view the searches via a list of ‘trending costumes’ or by using a ‘costume map’ to see searches by area.
The main omission from last year’s top 10 are searches for ‘Stranger Things’ costumes.
This is because the fourth season of the hugely popular Netflix series aired in 2022, prompting inspiration for those looking for scary Halloween-themed ideas.
Among the other most popular costumes were Wednesday Addams – of Addams Family and Netflix show Wednesday fame – and people looking to dress up as dinosaurs, cowboys, ninjas, bunnies, pirates, clowns and pumpkins. Adele dressed up as Morticia Addams for her Halloween weekend performance in Las Vegas (right)
Love Island couple, Jessie Wynter and Will Young dressed up as Jessie and Woody from Toy Story
Demi Lovato dressed up as Snow White for Halloween. That was Google’s 828th most popular costume
The top five most searched Halloween costumes in 2022 were witches, Spider-Man, dinosaurs, ‘Stranger Things’ and fairies.
Pirates, rabbits, cheerleaders, cowboys and Harley Quinn also made the top 10.
There were searches for 1980s – again perhaps linked to the Stranger Things franchise – as well as vampires, clowns, ‘Hocus Pocus’, Batman, pumpkins, angels and dolls.
To see the rest of the 2023 list, click here.
Battle of the bots! pits ChatGPT against Google’s Bard across 7 questions – and there’s no doubt which AI is the winner
Google is hoping to usher a new era of searching for information on the internet with its new AI chatbot, Bard.
The tech giant has rush-released Bard just months after the release of its hugely successful rival ChatGPT created by California AI firm OpenAI, backed by Microsoft.
Following Bard’s limited release, has fed both bots the same set of seven questions to see how their skills compare
Microsoft has been melding ChatGPT into its Bing search engine, which once posed a rival to Google Search before falling well behind.
Google execs are said to have declared a ‘code red’ – an emergency situation – over fears ChatGPT could now end Google’s $150billion-a-year search business monopoly.
fed both bots the same seven questions to see how their skills compare – and whether Google’s solution can quell the hype around ChatGPT.
Read more here.