Ask a Wizard research
Imaginary Friend Statistics: 24 Facts About the Friend Only You Could See (2026)
Featuring research by: Marjorie Taylor, Stephanie Carlson, Tracy Gleason, Elaine Reese, Paige Davis, Charles Fernyhough, Ben Alderson-Day and Legal & General
Most kids have had one by age 7. A friend no one else could see.
How many kids have one? What are they like? And who still remembers theirs?
We read the real studies. Here is every number, and where it came from.
Key stats
- 65%of kids in one study had an imaginary friend at some point by age 7.Taylor et al., 2004 (100 kids)
- 67%of the imaginary friends kids had at about age 7 were invisible.Taylor et al., 2004
- 5 of 23teens still remembered the imaginary friend they had at age 5½. They were asked at 16.McAnally et al., 2021
- 11%of 291 adults in China and the UK had an imaginary friend at the time of the study.Davis et al., 2026
- 0ranked lists of real imaginary friend names that we could find. We looked.Ask a Wizard search, October 2026
Chapter 1
How many kids have an imaginary friend?
Most kids do, at some point. Here are the numbers.
By age 7, 65% of kids in one study had had an imaginary friend at some point. Researchers followed the same 100 kids from age 3 or 4 until about age 7.
Source: Taylor, Carlson, Maring, Gerow and Charley, Developmental Psychology 40(6), 2004. PubMed abstract; UW News
At about age 7, 31% of those same kids had an imaginary friend at the time they were asked. Three years earlier, at age 3 or 4, it was 28%.
Source: Taylor et al., 2004. UW News
Chart 1
2 in 3 kids had an imaginary friend by age 7
100 kids, followed from age 3 or 4 to about age 7. One dot = one child.
65 had one at some point by age 7
- 31still had one when asked, at about age 7
- 34had one earlier, but not when asked
- 35never had one by age 7
In the UK, 17% of kids ages 3 to 10 had an imaginary friend at the time of the survey, their parents said. That's from 1,000 parents, each telling about one child.
Source: Legal & General parent survey, November 2018. legalandgeneral.com
By age 10, a UK child has about a 37% chance of having had one at some point, the same survey works out.
Source: Legal & General, 2018. legalandgeneral.com
Age 4 is the most common age for a child to dream up an imaginary friend, the same UK parents said.
Source: Legal & General, 2018. legalandgeneral.com
Chapter 2
What are imaginary friends like?
Some are invisible. Some live inside a toy. Most are people.
Scientists sort them into 2 kinds: invisible friends, and toys a child treats as a friend, like a stuffed animal or a doll. In one study, moms of 78 preschoolers said invisible friends were mostly playmates. Toy friends were mostly cared for, like a baby.
Source: Gleason, Sebanc and Hartup, "Imaginary Companions of Preschool Children," Developmental Psychology 36(4), 2000. PubMed
At about age 7, 67% of kids' imaginary friends were invisible. At age 3 or 4, it was the other way: 52% of their imaginary friends were based on a toy or other object.
Source: Taylor et al., 2004. UW News
At about age 7, 57% of kids' imaginary friends were people and 41% were animals.
Source: Taylor et al., 2004. UW News
Chart 2
Most were people. Almost all the rest were animals.
What kids' imaginary friends were, at about age 7. The whole bar = all their imaginary friends.
The thin grey end (2%) is not broken out in the source.
In the same study, kids told about anywhere from 1 to 13 imaginary friends each.
Source: Taylor et al., 2004. UW News
In the UK survey of kids ages 3 to 10, 6 in 10 imaginary friends were human.
Source: Legal & General, 2018. legalandgeneral.com
In the same UK survey, imaginary unicorns were more common than imaginary cats. Only dogs beat them, by a little. Girls were 2.5 times as likely as boys to have a unicorn friend (10% vs. 4%).
Source: Legal & General, 2018. legalandgeneral.com
In the UK survey, 81% of boys' imaginary friends were boys. For girls, 58% of their imaginary friends were girls.
Source: Legal & General, 2018. legalandgeneral.com
In the UK survey, only 6% of imaginary friends stayed around for more than 3 years.
Source: Legal & General, 2018. legalandgeneral.com
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Chapter 3
The friends Mom and Dad did not know about
More than 1 in 4 kids in one study had one.
At about age 7, 27% of the kids in the study told researchers about an imaginary friend their parents did not know about.
Source: Taylor et al., 2004. UW News
Chapter 4
Who remembers their imaginary friend?
Most forget theirs by 16. Some grown-ups still have one.
In a New Zealand study, 23 kids had an imaginary friend at age 5½. At 16, only 5 of them remembered it. 10 said they never had one at all.
Source: McAnally, Forsyth, Taylor and Reese, Journal of Creative Behavior 55(1), 2021. University of Otago
Chart 3
At 16, only 5 of 23 remembered the imaginary friend they had at 5½
23 kids who had an imaginary friend at age 5½, asked again at 16. One figure = one person.
5remembered it
8forgot it, but remembered a later one
10said they never had one
Of 60 college students ages 18 to 23, 20 said they had an imaginary friend as a kid.
Source: Firth, Alderson-Day, Woods and Fernyhough, Creativity Research Journal 27(4), 2015. PMC
Of 291 adults in China and the UK, 11% had an imaginary friend at the time of the study.
Source: Davis, Fernyhough, Yang, Xi, Xing and Smailes, PLoS One, January 2026. PMC
In that same study, 55.7% of the British adults said they had an imaginary friend as a kid. For the Chinese adults, it was 39.5%.
Source: Davis et al., 2026, Table 3 (106 British adults, 185 Chinese adults). PMC
In an online survey of 341 adults, people who remembered having an imaginary friend as a kid scored higher on seeing things from someone else's point of view.
Source: Halliday, Kola-Palmer, Davis, King and Retzler, "Childhood fantasy play relates to adult socio-emotional competence," Infant and Child Development 32(5), 2023. University of Huddersfield
Chapter 5
Famous imaginary friends
Four you already know.
Harvey
A giant rabbit, 6 feet 3½ inches tall, that most people can't see. Mary Chase's play Harvey opened on Broadway in 1944 and won the 1945 Pulitzer Prize for Drama.
Source: Pulitzer.org; Wikipedia
Mr. Snuffleupagus
On Sesame Street from 1971. For years only Big Bird could see him. The grown-ups finally met him in 1985.
Source: Mental Floss
Hobbes
A stuffed tiger to everyone else. A real tiger to Calvin. Bill Watterson's comic strip ran from 1985 to 1995.
Source: Wikipedia
Chapter 6
What are imaginary friends named?
No one knows. Really.
We could not find a single ranked list of real imaginary friend names. The name lists we found online are ideas, not counts of real friends. Real names only show up here and there, in comments.
Source: Ask a Wizard search of Google results, October 2026
Most people forget theirs.
We're here to fix that. Join the Imaginary Friend Study.
For event planners: The Wizard gives you a Message from your imaginary friend, live on a free 15-minute video call.
Tell us your imaginary friend's name and help build the first real list.
Get the full fact sheet
All 24 facts and every source on one printable page. Good for a class, a story or a talk.
Chapter 7
Cite and share this page
Free to use. Please link back to this page, and credit the original study for each number.
Cite this page
Ask a Wizard (2026). Imaginary Friend Statistics: 24 Facts About Imaginary Friends. https://askawizardmagic.com/library/imaginary-friend-facts. Updated October 2026.
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How we did it
Published studies and one company survey. Each fact links to its source. We did not make up any number. Where we did math (like 65 minus 31 in Chart 1), we say so.
Checked at least once a year. Last check: October 2026.
- Taylor, Carlson, Maring, Gerow and Charley. The characteristics and correlates of fantasy in school-age children: imaginary companions, impersonation, and social understanding. Developmental Psychology 40(6), 2004. Abstract on PubMed
- UW News, "Two-thirds of school-age children have an imaginary companion by age 7," December 6, 2004 (Taylor et al., 2004)
- UW News, "Imaginary friends: most kids have one or more," December 9, 2004 (Taylor et al., 2004)
- Legal & General, imaginary friends survey of 1,000 UK parents of kids ages 3 to 10, November 2018
- Gleason, Sebanc and Hartup. Imaginary Companions of Preschool Children. Developmental Psychology 36(4), 2000
- McAnally, Forsyth, Taylor and Reese. Imaginary Companions in Childhood: What Can Prospective Longitudinal Research Tell Us About Their Fate by Adolescence? Journal of Creative Behavior 55(1), 2021
- Firth, Alderson-Day, Woods and Fernyhough. Imaginary Companions in Childhood: Relations to Imagination Skills and Autobiographical Memory in Adults. Creativity Research Journal 27(4), 2015
- Davis, Fernyhough, Yang, Xi, Xing and Smailes. PLoS One, January 2026
- Halliday, Kola-Palmer, Davis, King and Retzler. Childhood fantasy play relates to adult socio-emotional competence. Infant and Child Development 32(5), 2023
- The Pulitzer Prizes, Mary Chase, 1945 Drama
- Wikipedia, Harvey (play)
- Mental Floss, an oral history of the 1985 Mr. Snuffleupagus reveal
- Wikipedia, Calvin and Hobbes
- Wikipedia, Inside Out (2015 film)
- Time, on Bing Bong in Inside Out
Questions
- How many kids have an imaginary friend?
- In one study that followed 100 kids, 65% had an imaginary friend at some point by age 7 (Taylor et al., 2004). In a UK survey of 1,000 parents, 17% of kids ages 3 to 10 had one at the time (Legal & General, 2018).
- At what age do kids have imaginary friends?
- Age 4 is the most common age for a child to dream one up, UK parents said (Legal & General, 2018).
- Are most imaginary friends invisible?
- By about age 7, yes: 67% were invisible. At age 3 or 4, 52% were based on a toy or other object (Taylor et al., 2004).
- Do people remember their imaginary friends?
- Most forget theirs by 16. In a New Zealand study, 23 kids had an imaginary friend at age 5½. At 16, only 5 of them remembered it (McAnally et al., 2021).
- Do adults have imaginary friends?
- Some do. Of 291 adults in China and the UK, 11% had one at the time of the study (Davis et al., 2026).
- What is the most common imaginary friend name?
- No one knows yet. We could not find a single ranked list of real imaginary friend names. The Imaginary Friend Study is building the first one.
- What are some famous imaginary friends?
- Harvey, the giant rabbit from Mary Chase's 1944 play. Mr. Snuffleupagus on Sesame Street. Hobbes from Calvin and Hobbes. Bing Bong from Pixar's Inside Out.
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