Random name picker
Paste a list and draw from it, or split it into even teams. Every draw is made in your browser from the cryptographic generator, so each name has exactly the same chance — which is the only thing a picker has to get right.
By Alex Seote, Built and maintains Rule Calculator
Draw verified flat by test, not by eye · How we check
8 names.
Fair means the sampler, not the animation
A spinning wheel makes a draw feel fair. What makes it fair is whether the code behind it gives every entry the same probability, and the common implementation does not quite: taking a random integer modulo the number of names hands a small extra chance to whoever is near the start of the list, because the random range rarely divides evenly by the list length.
The draw here discards the uneven remainder and takes another value instead. The cost is a loop that essentially never runs twice; the benefit is that the fairness claim on this page is true rather than decorative.
Questions people actually ask
- Does everyone really have the same chance?
- Yes, and it is the one claim worth checking on a page like this. Names are drawn with a rejection sampler over the browser’s cryptographic generator: the tail of the random value that would not divide evenly across the list is discarded and drawn again. The usual shortcut — a random number taken modulo the list length — gives the first few names a small edge, which is invisible and real.
- How are the teams balanced?
- The whole list is shuffled and then dealt round-robin, one name to each team in turn. That leaves the teams within one person of each other whatever the remainder, and every arrangement is equally likely. Splitting the list into blocks instead would keep neighbours together, which is exactly what people are trying to avoid.
- Can the same name come up twice?
- Not in one draw. Picks are made without replacement, the way numbered balls come out of a machine — once a name is out it cannot come again. Two separate draws are independent, so a name can win twice across two rounds, which is what makes a second round a genuinely fresh chance rather than a consolation.
- Is my list sent anywhere?
- No. Everything happens in your browser: no request is made when you press the button, and there is nothing on our side that ever sees the names. Reloading the page clears it.
- Can I use this for a giveaway?
- It will draw fairly, which is the part arithmetic can do. What it cannot do is prove to anyone else that you did not draw ten times and keep the answer you liked. For a giveaway that needs to be seen to be fair, publish the list first and draw once in front of people.