October has a little bit of everything for sports fans. Both the NBA and NHL regular seasons get underway, Major League Baseball is in the heart of its postseason and will crown a champion later this month, and the NFL and college football take center stage on the weekends.

But in our humble opinion, October reigns supreme on the calendar for one specific reason: Halloween. Whether you’re a fan of haunted houses, like to spike the punch with something to liven up the party, or are just looking to hoard as many Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups as you can, Halloween is a time for everyone to let loose and enjoy themselves.

That, of course, also includes the costumes. You don’t want to be that person who’s too cool to get dressed up, right? It’s one of the few things in life that’s socially acceptable from toddlers to adults—might as well make the most of it.

Methodology

Bookies.com analyzed Google Trends data for the term “Halloween Costume” from September 10, 2024, to October 10, 2024, to identify the most popular Halloween costumes of the year. We determined the top costume by selecting the highest-ranking costume-related rising search term during this period. By breaking down the data by state, we were able to pinpoint the rising costume trends in each U.S. state, highlighting regional favorites for 2024.

What's The 2024 Most Popular Halloween Costume?

When people are deciding on what to dress up as, where are they focused? Is it the traditional option, the popular-now option, or something spooky? We analyzed each of the 50 U.S. states to see what their top options are for this upcoming Halloween. Here’s what we found:

Clowns Will Always Play Well on Halloween

A clown costume is probably the most versatile option out there. There are, of course, fun clowns with gigantic smiles and big floppy shoes to go along with a red nose. But there are also scarier clowns—we’re looking at you, Stephen King—that give off a creepy vibe and send chills down the spin on All Hollow’s Eve. Regardless of your theme, you guys love clowns. A costume-high six states rank it as their top costume, and it wasn’t segmented to one part of the population. As far West as Hawaii, as far North as North Dakota, and as far East as Maine were all among the popular contests.

And no, we can’t forget about Pennywise. The popular Stephen King character from the book (and later, movies) IT crawled his way onto the list with a top spot in Pennsylvania. Though King sets many of his novels in Maine (which had a clown as its top costume option), he also sets a couple in Pennsylvania, so this was a nice ode to the horror king.

The Barbie Theme Is Gone

Barbie, starring Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling, took the pop culture scene by storm last summer—and that momentum carried into October, with a whopping 40 U.S. states ranking it as their top costume option. This time around, it’s a bit different. Only Michigan has Barbie in the top spot (which it also had in 2023), so we’re happy to see there will still be some pink flair on Halloween this year.

Some Costumes Are Truly Timeless

Halloween options like Deadpool, Harley Quinn, Joker, and Barbie all have some relevant mainstream ties from the last few years. Call us old-fashioned—we’re definitely old—but it warmed our hearts to see a few 90s-themed costumes still ranking highly on the list.

Specific shoutouts are for Alabama (Ghost Face from Scream), Nebraska (PowerPuff Girls), and both Maryland and Texas (Michael Myers). We’ll also toss Mississippi and New Mexico some Halloween points for ranking Toy Story’s Woody as their go-to costume.

Going into the truly classic costume ideas not attached to TV and movies, princess (five states), witch (two states), vampire (two states), cowboy (two states), firefighter (one state), and pirate (one state) all managed to find their way onto the list.

And while we can’t think of too many rivalries between Colorado and Illinois, they will probably want to stay away from each other on Halloween. The Land of Lincoln’s top choice was a devil, while The Centennial State chose an angel. Let’s keep it civil, you two.