What do you call a hairstyle, most often sported by little girls or by women when exercising, where the hair is divided into two parts and secured with elastic bands or ribbons? Assume the hair is not braided or plaited.
One of my fellow misplaced Yanks has told me she’s never heard these called what I call them, and I’d like to see how this turns out 
I always call it pigtails if it’s two on the sides, or a ponytail if it’s just one in the back.
Pigtails are two, ponytails are one, and I have never heard of bunches.
Pigtails are when there are two, a ponytail is when there is just one.
I’ve heard them called bunches, but never by someone from the US, so I don’t know if that’s in use anywhere here.
Agree with the above. Pigtails = two, Pony = one.
I voted for ponytails (looks like I’m the only one), but actually I think I’d call them pigtails. If they’re braided, I’d call them braids. Never “bunches,” though.
Pigtails. Though I don’t associate them with exercise–when I think of exercise, I think ponytails. That is, just one tail.
No no no, pigtails are braids, ponytails are non-braids.
At least in Montana, when I was growing up.
-k-
I’ve never ever heard it that way. You could have braided pigtails, or a braided ponytail, though.
There’s a smattering of “pigtails are braids” dancing around in the back of my mind. I think when I was little, we called the hairdo with two “dogears” and the hairstyle with one “ponytail”. Also two braids were “pigtails” and one braid was … a braid. Nowadays I hear girls say “pigtails” for what we called “dogears”.
Pigtails are two, one on each side of the head, like Pippi Longstocking. Ponytails are when all the hair is pulled back into one piece.
This here.
Agreed with those who say pigtails are two, ponytail is one.
A ‘braid’ in Australia is only the more stylised hairstyle where the hair is woven from the head, gathering more as you go along (not sure how to explain it better than that!) whereas having just three ‘ribbons’ of hair woven together is a ‘plait’.
So we would call it ‘plaits’ if a girl had two pigtails were done in the style which I think a lot of you Dopers call a braid.
Just to throw some more hair terminology out there!
Interesting. What you call a braid, we’d call a French braid in the US. 
One plain tail in the back is a ponytail. Two braids (plaits) on the sides are pigtails. The style described in the OP was called dogears in my family, but I’ve never heard anyone else call them that until this thread. For what it’s worth, I live in Kentucky.
Folks, if the two tails are not on the sides (say, a part in the middle, but both tails pulled straight back), are they not pigtails?
Where I come from if it’s braided it’s a pigtail and if it’s not braided it’s a ponytail regardless of how many bunches there are.
hummer handles
I always thought pigtails need to be braided. Pigs have tails like corkscrews, which resemble braids.
either pigtails or ponytails. I think pigtails is more accurate. I think it can be really cute.