Random Name Picker

How random selection works

The picker shuffles your list and takes from the top. Every name has exactly the same chance of being drawn, regardless of where it sits in the list — being first or last makes no difference to the odds.

With 50 names and one winner, each person has a 1 in 50 chance, or 2%. Drawing 5 winners from 50 gives each name a 10% chance of appearing somewhere in the results.

Unique picks vs repeats

Unique picks remove each name once drawn, so nobody can win twice. This is what you want for raffles, prize draws, and assigning people to roles.

Allowing repeats puts each name back before the next draw, so the same person can come up more than once. This is useful when you're picking who answers the next question in a classroom, or sampling with replacement for a statistics exercise.

Common uses

• Giveaways and raffles — paste entrant names and draw winners transparently
• Classroom participation — call on students without unconscious favouritism
• Team assignment — split a group by drawing names in rounds
• Breaking ties — settle a decision when a group can't agree
• Chore or task rotation — assign duties without argument

A note on fairness

This runs in your browser using the standard JavaScript random number generator. That is genuinely unbiased and perfectly adequate for giveaways, classroom use, and everyday decisions.

It is not, however, a certified randomness source. If you're running a draw that is legally regulated — a licensed lottery, a prize promotion with formal audit requirements, or anything where a losing entrant could challenge the result — use a provider that issues a verifiable certificate of randomness. For everything else, this is fine.

Nothing you enter is sent anywhere. The list stays in your browser and disappears when you close the page.