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These were the top trending Halloween costumes in New York in 2026, according to Google

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FOX 5 NY
Holidays
Published October 31, 2026 4:47 PM CDT
Published October 31, 2026 4:47 PM CDT
Titanic-themed Halloween stoop on the Upper East Side
Titanic-themed Halloween stoop on the Upper East Side

Titanic-themed Halloween stoop on the Upper East Side

A townhome on the Upper East Side has gone viral for its Titanic-themed decor. FOX 5 NY's Stephanie Bertini gives us an up-close look at all the details. 

The Brief

    • Google has released data on the most searched for Halloween costumes of the year.
    • Marvel characters dominated the top costume searches in the New York region.
    • Across the country, some of the top-trending costume searches were characters from popular movies released this year, like Buddy the Unicorn, Nikki from Obsession and Agamemnon from The Odyssey.

NEW YORK - Google has released its data on the most searched for Halloween costumes of the year, and while many of the "traditional" costumes were underrepresented, there probably won't be too many surprises for anyone.

The trendiest Halloween costumes

What we know:

The data was released as part of "Google Frightgeist" which took a look at searches related to Halloween costumes over the last year (from September 2025 to September 2026).

Here's a breakdown of the most-searched for costumes by region across the U.S. New York's top search was Wolverine from the X-Men.

Top Halloween costumes by region

By the numbers:

Across the board, comic book characters made up a good chunk of the top searches, but all of the top searches were about as topical as you might expect. 

Analyzing the "top 5" costumes from every region, Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man was the most popular overall, which makes sense considering a new Spider-Man movie was released this year. Next, though, was Dolly Parton, the country music icon who died in August at age 80. 

The most searched for Halloween costumes in New York

Local perspective:

The New York region was really into comic book characters this Halloween, particularly characters from the Marvel Universe. Wolverine, Black Widow and Doctor Doom were the top three costume searches across the region this year. The top five were rounded out by "Ringmaster" and Dolly Parton.

The Top 5 trending Halloween costume-related Google searches in the New York area in 2026. (Credit: Google Frightfest)

Google's top 25 breakout Halloween costumes of 2026

Big picture view:

Google's Top 25 trending costumes this year across the country were:

  1. Buddy the Unicorn
  2. Needoh
  3. Nikki (from Obsession)
  4. Agamemnon (from The Odyssey)
  5. Lily Love Braids (from Poppy Playtime)
  6. Oliver Tree
  7. Verity (from Minecraft)
  8. Carl (from Dungeon Crawler Carl)
  9. Disco Scooby Doo
  10. Hazel Hook (from Descendants)
  11. Captain Clark (from Backrooms)
  12. Dolly Parton
  13. Thragg (from Invincible)
  14. Kenny Rogers
  15. Bowser Jr.
  16. Princess Rosalina (from Super Mario)
  17. Green Lantern (from DC Comics)
  18. Michael Jackson (Thriller era)
  19. Skeletor (from Masters of the Universe)
  20. Cyclops (from X-Men)
  21. Dumplimg
  22. Dr. Frank-N-Furter (from The Rocky Horror Picture Show)
  23. Viltrumite (from Invincible)
  24. Nightcrawler (from X-Men)
  25. Doctor Doom (from Marvel Universe)

Here's the full data, showing the Top 5 costume searches in every region:

The Source: Information in this story is from Google search trend data released in Google Frightgeist, including search trends for the top Halloween costumes in the U.S. in 2026, by region. Calculations of the "most popular" costumes in the country were based on a weighted average of the "Top 5" costumes in every region.

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