Halloween Costumes 2026: Buddy the Unicorn Tops Google's Frightgeist Rankings, and Dolly Parton Leads the Kids' List
With Halloween on a Saturday for the first time in years — and not again until 2037 — Google's search-based Frightgeist rankings put Buddy the Unicorn first nationally, with Dolly Parton the most-searched kids' costume and the top pet costume a centipede.
Halloween lands on a Saturday this year, Oct. 31, and Google's search data says the country is dressing accordingly. Frightgeist, Google's interactive site built on Google Trends searches, ranks the season's most popular costumes nationally and by city — and its 2026 national list is topped by Buddy the Unicorn.
The rest of the national top ten, according to the Frightgeist rankings published this week, is Needoh second, Nikki from Obsession third, then Agamemnon from The Odyssey, Lily Love Braids from Poppy Playtime, Oliver Tree, Verity from Minecraft, Carl from Dungeon Crawler Carl, Disco Scooby-Doo and Hazel Hook from Descendants: Wicked Wonderland. The rankings are search-based: they measure what people are looking up, which is why the list mixes children's characters, games and one very current singer-songwriter.
The name just outside the top ten is the one leading two other lists. Dolly Parton ranks 12th nationally overall, is the No. 1 kids' costume in the country, and is the top trending person searched alongside the term 'blond wig,' according to Frightgeist. The kids' list behind her includes Ella Langley, Dumpling, Shakira, Ash Ketchum from Pokémon, Hannah Montana, Spider-Gwen, Michael Jackson in his Thriller era, Pomni and Grogu. Among pets, the top costume is a centipede, with Dolly Parton second; the top duo is Disco Scooby and Shaggy.
Saturday Halloweens are rare: because of the way leap years shift the calendar in 2028, 2032 and 2036, Halloween will not fall on a Saturday again until 2037. Frightgeist lets users enter their own city to see which costumes are most searched locally — worth a look for Austin households still deciding, with the Saturday-night trick-or-treat window three days away.
