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Who answers the next question? Who gets the last slice? Which five of forty students present first? When a choice has to be fair, a person picking by eye is never quite trusted, even by themselves. The Random Name Picker shuffles your list and either draws the first few names or deals everyone into teams. It has two modes and one number to set, and a few small behaviours that are worth knowing before you use it in front of a crowd.
How to use it, step by step
- Open the Random Name Picker and type or paste the names, one per line. Try a sample fills in six names.
- Choose a mode: Pick winners or Make teams.
- Set How many winners / teams. It starts at 1 and accepts 1 to 100.
- Press Pick Randomly.
- Read the result and the counts above it. Press the button again for a completely fresh draw.
The list does not have to hold people. It works for anything you can put on a line: restaurants, movie titles, chores, quiz questions, tasks for the week. If you want the draw to be a spectacle rather than a list, the Spinner Wheel does the same job with a wheel.
Pick winners
In this mode the tool shuffles the whole list and takes the first names off the top. If you ask for one winner, you see just the name. If you ask for more than one, the winners are numbered in the order they were drawn, so “1.” was drawn first. That order is itself random, so you can use it as a ranking for first, second and third prize.
| Names in the list | Winners asked for | What you see |
|---|---|---|
| 6 | 1 | A single name, with no number |
| 6 | 3 | A numbered list of 3 different names |
| 6 | 10 | All 6 names, shuffled. You cannot draw more winners than there are entries |
| 1 | 1 | An error: add at least two items, one per line |
The counts above the result show how many items were in your list and how many winners were drawn.
With N names and k different winners, each name’s chance is k out of N. It is the same for every name, which is what makes the draw fair.
Make teams
Team mode shuffles the list and then deals the names out one at a time into the teams, round and round, the way you deal cards. Because of that, the teams are always as even as they can be: their sizes never differ by more than one person. If you ask for more teams than there are names, you simply get one name per team.
| People | Teams | Team sizes |
|---|---|---|
| 10 | 2 | 5 and 5 |
| 10 | 3 | 4, 3 and 3 |
| 25 | 4 | 7, 6, 6 and 6 |
| 30 | 5 | 6 each |
| 7 | 3 | 3, 2 and 2 |
The larger teams are always the first ones listed, because the dealing starts at Team 1.
The result lists each team as “Team 1 (4):” followed by its members, one per line, with the size in brackets. If you want fixed team sizes instead (say, groups of four), divide the number of people by the size you want and round up. Thirty people in groups of four needs 8 teams, which gives six teams of four and two of three.
What happens with duplicate names
Each line is its own entry, and the tool does not remove repeats. If “Aarav” is on two lines, there are two Aarav entries in the shuffle. That has three consequences.
If every name should count once, remove repeats first with the Duplicate Line Remover and its guide.
Note that the match is by exact line. “Aarav” and “aarav” or “Aarav ” (with a trailing space, which the tool trims) are treated differently only if the letters differ. Capital letters count as a difference here, so type each name the same way every time.
Is the draw really fair
The tool shuffles with your browser’s cryptographic random source, the kind used for security, rather than the simple built-in random function. It uses the standard shuffle in which every possible order of the list is equally likely. The tiny rounding effect from fitting a random number to a list size is far too small to matter for lists of up to a hundred names. In practice, no name is favoured and nobody, including the website, can predict or steer the result.
Fair does not mean evenly spread. If you run a draw several days in a row, the same person can win twice, and a run of repeats is normal. The article on fair random numbers explains why streaks are what real chance looks like, and two dice and a coin shows the same idea with simpler odds.
Running a draw nobody can argue with
- 1Show the list firstPut the names on a screen or on paper before drawing, so everyone sees who is in.
- 2Say the rulesAnnounce how many winners, and that a name appears once (or as many times as tickets) before you press anything.
- 3Draw once, in front of everyonePress Pick Randomly one time, with the list visible.
- 4Keep the resultRead it aloud or take a screenshot. Pressing the button again gives a different result, and the tool does not keep a record of past draws.
- 5Accept itRedrawing until the answer pleases you defeats the point.
Fairness in a draw is mostly about the process being visible, not about the maths.
What it cannot do
- No memory. It does not remember past winners, so to stop someone winning again, delete their name from the list yourself.
- No weights. Everyone has the same chance, except through repeated lines.
- No uneven teams. You choose the number of teams, not the size of each one.
- No saved lists. Keep a copy of your class list in a note, because the box is empty next time you visit.
- One result at a time. For numbered tickets rather than names, the Random Number Generator is simpler, and the Dice Roller & Coin Flip settles two-way choices.
Privacy: the list is shuffled in your browser, and Toolcloak does not receive it. That is worth having when the list is a class register or a staff list.
Questions people ask
How do I pick a random name from a list?
Open the Random Name Picker, type the names one per line, leave the mode on Pick winners with 1 winner, and press Pick Randomly. The tool shuffles the list securely and shows the first name.
Naam randomly kaise chune?
Random Name Picker kholiye, har line mein ek naam likhiye aur Pick Randomly dabaiye. Ek se zyada winner chahiye to How many winners mein number badhaiye. Teams banani ho to Make teams chuniye.
How do I split a class into random teams?
Choose Make teams, set the number of teams, and press Pick Randomly. The names are dealt out one at a time, so the team sizes never differ by more than one person.
Why did the same name appear twice?
That name is on two lines, and each line counts as a separate entry. The tool does not remove repeats. Delete the extra line, or run a duplicate-line remover first, if each name should count once.
How many names do I need?
At least two, one per line. If you add fewer, the tool asks you to add more. Blank lines are ignored and spaces at the start or end of a name are trimmed.
What is the most winners or teams I can ask for?
100. If you ask for more winners than there are names, you get every name in a random order. If you ask for more teams than names, each team gets one name.
Is it really random, and can it be rigged?
It shuffles with your browser’s secure random source, so every order is equally likely. Nobody can predict or steer the result, but because it keeps no record, show the list and the result openly if fairness matters.
Does a shared link show the same winners?
Not necessarily. The link reopens your list and settings, and the draw runs again, so the result can differ. To show who won, share a screenshot of the result instead.