Nigerians show growing interest in Halloween- Google search says

Katsina leads state with most queries

Squid game, Cinderella and Father Christmas top Halloween costumes search

Nigerians have surprisingly shown a growing interest in the holiday of Halloween with terms like, ‘When is Halloween?’, ‘Halloween meaning’ and ‘History of Halloween’ topping Google Search queries in the week leading up to 31 October 2021.

Halloween, regarded as a Western tradition, is celebrated each year on 31 October in the United Kingdom (UK), Ireland, Scotland, United States of America and various European countries. The word ‘Halloween’ comes from All Hallows’ eve and means ‘hallowed evening’. The tradition has an ancient Celtic origin. Pope Gregory III in the 18th century proclaimed 1st of November, ‘All Saints day’, a time to honour saints. All Saints day then integrated some of the Celtic tradition to pay homage to saints. The evening before was known as All Hallows Eve.

Halloween is marked as a holiday around the world with a growing popularity among young adults interested in costume parties and who are social media enthusiasts. During Halloween, people dress up as their favourite celebrities or movie characters. Homes are decorated as scary haunted houses in spooky themes and children go from house to house to get candy or sweets, referred to as trick or treating.

As the holiday gathers global popularity, Nigerians have also shown greater interest, and searched for Halloween costumes during the period in review with Drama, Thriller and Horror fiction record breaking Squid Game, Cinderella and Father Christmas costume taking the top three spots as Nigerians prepared for Halloween.

Trends data shows that searches for the term Halloween have been steadily rising over the last 30 days with Katsina, Bauchi, Benue, Kwara and Oyo States generating the most queries.