Who do Americans want to dress up as the most?
New research has revealed America's most searched characters for costumes.
The research by Ninja Transfers analyzed Google search data for the terms "[character] costume" and "[character] outfit”, and used a seed list of over 300 characters to determine which fictional characters Americans most want to dress up as. Beetlejuice topped the list with 220,418 average monthly searches. These searches account for approximately 15% of the total searches for the Top 50 characters.
Deadpool secured the second position with 142,792 monthly searches, likely boosted by last year's release of "Deadpool & Wolverine". Wolverine also made the top 10, ranking ninth with 69,132 monthly searches.
The Joker's sidekick, Harley Quinn, claimed the third spot with 95,584 monthly searches , ranking higher than the Joker himself, who comes in 11th with 63,547 searches.
Minions ranked fourth with 93,986 monthly searches, making them the most popular animated characters on the list.
Batman rounds out the top five with 92,462 searches, and he beats other iconic DC characters like Wonder Woman (64,006 searches) and Catwoman (72,888).
Michael Myers, the iconic horror movie villain from the "Halloween" franchise, ranked sixth with 82,038 monthly searches.
Horror characters proved particularly popular, with Freddy Krueger (37,885 searches), Jack Skellington (37,350 searches), and Pennywise (36,153 searches) all ranking in the top 30.
Wednesday Addams placed seventh with 76,714 monthly searches, likely boosted by the popularity of the recent Netflix series.
Victor Ilisco, Director of Sales & Operations at Ninja Transfers, commented on the findings: "Costume searches often mimic whatever’s big in pop culture, so it makes sense that most of the top picks are from DC or Marvel, especially after last year’s huge box office hit Deadpool vs Wolverine. Horror favourites like Michael Myers are still going strong, too, tying into Halloween when it rolls around, and showing that scary characters can stick around in people’s minds and stay popular for generations."