Random Name Picker

A random name picker for classrooms, giveaways and teams

The random name picker draws names from a list as fairly as pulling paper slips from a hat — only faster, and without anyone suspecting the hat. Paste a class register, a list of giveaway entrants, meeting attendees or players, choose how many winners you need, and watch each name spin into place on a slot-machine reel.

Several winners are always different people: the picker never repeats a name within a draw. You can also take picked names off the list automatically, so the next draw only includes people who have not had a turn yet, and put them back with one tap. Your list stays on your device — nothing is uploaded.

How to use the Random Name Picker

1. Paste or type names into the Names box, one per line. A single line separated by commas works too (“Ann, Ben, Cal”).
2. Set the Number of winners. One winner gets the full slot-machine reveal; several winners are revealed one after another and listed in draw order.
3. Tick Remove picked names from the list if each person should be chosen only once across several draws.
4. Leave Count each name only once ticked so someone who appears twice does not get a double chance; untick it if duplicates are deliberate extra entries.
5. Press Pick a name. Copy the winners with one tap; earlier draws are kept in the history below.

Random Name Picker features

How the picker chooses fairly

When you press the button, the list is cleaned (blank lines removed and, if you wish, duplicates merged) and then shuffled with the Fisher–Yates algorithm. The first name of the shuffled list is your winner; for several winners the first n names are used, in that order. Each swap in the shuffle uses a random index from your browser’s cryptographic generator with rejection sampling, which avoids the small bias that the common “random number modulo list length” shortcut introduces.

The spinning reel is decoration: the winners are fixed before the animation starts, and the names flashing past are random filler from your list. That means the result cannot be influenced by when you tap, and with 30 names each person has exactly a 1 in 30 chance.

Tips for a fair public draw

• Show the full list on screen before you draw, and say how many winners there will be.
• For prize draws, check the entries for duplicates first — the counter shows how many were ignored.
• Use the history or the Copy winners button to keep a record, including runners-up in case a winner cannot be reached.
• For a more theatrical draw with a big visual, use Spin the Wheel; to split everyone into groups, use the Team Generator; and to reorder a whole list, try the List Randomizer.

Classroom ideas

• Cold calling: tick “Remove picked names” so every student answers once before anyone answers twice.
• Presentation order: set the number of winners to the class size — the draw order becomes the speaking order.
• Weekly jobs: pick several names at once for monitors or helpers, then copy the list into your planner.
• Numbered seats or tickets: the Random Number Generator is quicker when you only need numbers.