How to pick random names from a list
- Enter your names in the list, one per line. Paste them straight from a spreadsheet if you like.
- Choose how many names you want to draw.
- Decide whether a name may come up more than once. Tick Allow repeats to put every name back after each draw; leave it off to draw without repeats.
- Press Draw and watch the slips drop out of the hat, one after another.
Copy the numbered result or remove the drawn names from the list so they cannot be picked again in the next round.
Names out of a hat, the digital way
A paper hat is slow and easy to fiddle with. This selector keeps the feel of drawing lots but removes the work: no cutting paper, no folding, no arguing about whether the slips were mixed. It is handy for classroom turns, raffles at a club evening, choosing who goes first in a game, assigning chores, picking a reviewer on a team or choosing a name for a pet from a shortlist.
Drawing without repeats behaves like pulling real slips from a hat and keeping them: a name that has been drawn is gone. Drawing with repeats is like writing the name down and putting the slip back, so the same name can come up again. Both modes are common, and the right one depends on your rules.
Is the draw fair? The random source explained
Every name on the list has the same chance in every position. The tool uses crypto.getRandomValues, the cryptographic random generator of your browser, and a rejection method that avoids the small bias you get from a plain remainder calculation. Without repeats it applies a Fisher-Yates selection, the standard method for an unbiased random sample. The order in which the names are shown is itself random, so the first name drawn is not special.
The animation is only decoration. The result is fixed before the first slip moves, so you cannot influence it by timing a click.
Tips
Duplicate names are marked under the list, because a repeated name makes that person more likely to be picked. Use Remove duplicates if that is not what you want. If you ask for more names than the list holds and repeats are off, you get everyone, in random order. That makes the tool a quick way to create a random order too; the list randomizer page is built for that.
FAQ
How do I pick a random name without repeats?
Leave Allow repeats switched off. Each name can then be drawn only once per round.
What happens if I draw more names than I have?
Without repeats you get every name once. With repeats you can draw as many as you like, up to 1000.
Can I draw the same name twice?
Yes, if you switch on Allow repeats. Each draw then starts from the full list again.
Can others check the draw?
The draw happens on your device. For public draws, show your screen while drawing, or use the giveaway picker, which writes a draw record with the time and number of participants.