Which fairytale is the most popular in your country?
Global fairytale popularity report: which classic children’s fairytales have reached the most success overseas
Fairytales have played a fairly large role in many childhoods across the globe, helping parents to introduce their children to moral values through their parables whilst also aiding children’s language development and reading skills. Many have been used as bedtime stories to help even the most stubborn children to fall asleep, but which fairytales are the most popular globally?
To find out more about how classic fairytales have fared overseas, children’s language-learning EdTech company FlashAcademy® compiled the number of searches each fairytale has obtained from each country around the world. In their research report, they used search result analytics across a 12-month period to provide an index rating for each fairytale in terms of how prevalent searches were in total.
Interestingly, despite many of these fairytales being originally published in European languages, many of the top countries that showed an interest in these stories were far outside of Europe. The report broke these fairytales down into several categories – ‘classic’ fairytale princesses, magical beings, and traditional bedtime stories.
Within the ‘classic’ fairytale princesses category, the original rags-to-riches fairytale, Cinderella, was most popular in the Philippines – achieving a search index ranking of 100. Other countries that ranked highly for this fairytale were Ghana with a rating of 89 and Sweden with a ranking of 86.
Rapunzel was another popular fairytale analysed in this report, which saw the most success in Paraguay – seeing an index ranking of 100. Interestingly, the countries that showed the most interest in this traditionally-German fairytale were from Spanish-speaking countries, with Nicaragua achieving a ranking of 96 points and El Salvador obtaining 92 points.
In contrast, The Frog Prince was originally published in German and remained popular with German-speaking countries. The countries that obtained the highest index ranking for this fairytale were:
- Austria (100 points)
- Hungary (89 points)
- Germany (87 points)
In terms of fairytales that were popular in the United States, the classic bedtime-adventure story Puss in Boots achieved an index score of 100. Meanwhile, The Snow Queen was the most popular in the United Kingdom with 100 points.
The report discovered that, in most cases, the fairytales had spread far beyond the language in which they were originally written. Most fairytales within the research had obtained, at least, an index score above 0 in each country. This highlights how fairytales can act as a common interest for children of all cultures and backgrounds, even if the version of the story they are reading is not published in English.
Commenting on the results of the research, FlashAcademy’s co-founder and CEO Veejay Lingiah said:
“This research has showcased that, despite linguistic differences, children are able to enjoy fairytales from various cultures without language barriers standing in the way. The use of fairytales plays a major role in children’s early language development, with many parents regularly reading these stories to their children, either throughout the day or more typically at bedtime. This allows children to learn to read and speak whilst also engaging with the characters and experiences within these stories. Ultimately, these fairytales have transcended the languages in which they were originally published and are now enjoyed by children globally.”
