Random Name Picker
Paste your list, draw one name, and decide whether to put it back. Below: what each name is worth, why some names never come up, and why draw order does not matter.
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The list stays in your browser. Nothing you paste is sent to this site.
Decide first: does the name go back in?
Removing a name after it is drawn changes the odds for everyone still in the list. That is what you want for a raffle and not what you want for a repeated fair pick, so choose deliberately. Either way the draw runs on Math.random(): good enough for a classroom, not fit for a prize anyone has an incentive to predict.
What each name is worth
Every name has the same chance: one divided by the list length.
| Names in the list | Chance each | After one is removed |
|---|---|---|
| 10 | 10% | 11.1% |
| 20 | 5% | 5.26% |
| 30 | 3.33% | 3.45% |
Leave names in and some are never called
This is the figure that catches teachers out. Take a class of 30 and draw 30 times without removing anyone. The chance a given pupil is never picked is 29/30 to the power of 30, or 36.2% – about 11 of the 30 sit out the whole round while others come up three times. Repeats start early too: by the seventh draw, a 53% chance some name has already appeared twice. If you want everybody once, remove each name as it is drawn.
In a raffle, draw order does not matter
Pull three winners from 50 names with removal and every name has a 3 in 50 chance – 6% – of being one of them. Each place is 1 in 50 too: first, second and third are equally likely for any name. Being drawn later is not worse: the shrinking pool exactly cancels having to survive the earlier draws.
Related
To split the same list into sides, use the random team generator. Any pasted list works in the random picker, and a numbered class list suits random number 1 to 30.