You Took the Test, Now See How Everyone Else Did: A Look at the Downton Abbey Personality Quiz Results

A whole lot of you have taken the Downton Abbey Personality Quiz over the last few weeks and, hopefully, most of you were happy with your results (or cheated just kept taking it until you got the character you really wanted, like I did!)

We got curious about how the quiz results broke down, though, so we thought we’d take a look at how everything shook out, including total results, most popular result, etc. There were some interesting trends, so click through and for a look at our fun pie chart that breaks out everyone’s answers by character, based on some snazzy behind-the-scenes analytics.

First, some overall statistics!

People from all over the world took the quiz.

• The Downton Personality Quiz was taken over 220,000 times. Thanks for trying it out, everyone!
• Fans from all over the globe have taken the quiz – we’ve had visitors from over 150 countries and territories! Users from as far away as New Zealand, China, Bahrain, Russia, Trinidad and Tobago, Zimbabwe, and Lichtenstein, to name just a few, have all determined their Downton alter ego.
• The majority of quiz takers hailed from the United States, with Sweden and the United Kingdom rounding out the top three. (Sweden in the second slot? Slightly surprising, but also really cool.) Other countries with lots of quiz takers: Canada, Australia, Finland, and Norway.

You all wanted to see virtually every Downton character represented as an answer. We’ll see what we can do for next time.

• Site statistics show many users searched for very specific character results pages – whether they were trying to reach a particular answer on purpose or just determine whether a character was available as an answer in the first place.
• We had several hundred people try out URLs for characters who weren’t possible results, which has given us a great idea of who fans would like to see represented when we create Downton Personality Quiz 2.0.
• Lady Mary Crawley was the most searched for non-available option – several hundred people really wanted to end up with her as their personality result!
• While Lady Mary was far and away our most popular absent personality, many  also wanted other unavailable characters. Cora was our second most frequent search, followed by Thomas, believe it or not, in third place. Fans also searched for Carson, Branson, Daisy, William and O’Brien – though I’d really like to know which of you it was that wanted to end up with that last answer!

Now on to the actual quiz results – the following pie chart shows the breakdown of overall quiz results by character. The rankings might surprise you!

Good Guys Do Finish First, Apparently

• The top three most frequently received results are arguably the three best (“best” in terms of being traditionally “good”) characters on Downton.  Over 60% of users got Robert, Sybil or Anna as their personality. No scheming or backstabbing for you guys!

• Lord Grantham came in first place – 22% of folks who took the quiz got this answer. This means that nearly over a fifth of our audience sees themselves as honest, honorable and generous. (Woohoo!) I wonder how the events of Series 2 might force our answers to change for this next year? (The Jane situation would surely change the statements associated with his character, don’t you think?)
• Lady Sybil is hot on the heels of her father, with 21% of fans getting her as their answer. These folks are generally compassionate, idealistic and thoughtful. Well done!
• Interestingly, it’s Sybil who seems to have been the most popular on social media. Her results page was liked over 12,000 times, easily outdistancing Robert’s at 9,000, even though more people technically got Robert as an answer.

The Dowager Countess: Not as Highly Ranked As You’d Think

• Full disclosure: I wanted the Dowager Countess as my result and worked really hard to get it! I figured most everyone else would too – the character is awesome, everyone loves Maggie Smith, and the Dowager really does get all the best lines. Surprisingly, Lady Violet came in fourth place with 14% of results, not at all what I expected.

Poor Edith: Even People Who Got This Answer Tried to Hide It

• Referrals from the Edith quiz result page (the page that would display if you got Edith as an answer) back to the main quiz page itself were quite high. This indicates that some of you got Edith and didn’t want to admit it, so immediately went back to take the quiz again.  (Though considering we based this quiz on Series 1 behavior, I can’t really blame any of you.)
• Really, poor Edith. We’ll definitely have to adjust her profile for the next iteration of this quiz. She’s come such a long way!

So - for next time, which character would you all most like to see as a possible answer? Were you happy with your results? Would you like more questions next time? Fewer? Let us know, and we'll see what we can do!