Random name picker that runs in your own browser

Thirty names on a register and one prize. Or four slots on a presentation schedule and nine people who all want to go last. Somebody has to decide, and if you decide it yourself you will spend the next ten minutes explaining why.

A draw hands that decision to chance, which is the point of it. It also has to be seen to be fair, and that is a separate problem that most people get wrong. A number pulled out of your head is not a draw. Neither is a shuffle you ran on your own phone and then read out.

This picker runs in the page on your own device. The names you paste in are not sent to a server, there is no account, and nothing is uploaded. That matters when the list is a class register or a staff rota, because thirty children's names should not leave the room to settle who gets the last library pass.

Pick one name, or shuffle the whole list

Two outputs cover nearly every draw anybody needs. The first returns a single name. The second takes your list and gives it back in a fresh numbered order, first to last.

The shuffle is the one people reach for less often and need more. A single winner answers one line of a raffle. An order answers a whole afternoon: who presents in which slot, who goes first at the game, which of nine people reads out their section, whose turn it is to run the Monday meeting for the next two months. Run the shuffle once and the next hour is decided instead of the next thirty seconds.

It also fixes the second-prize problem for free, which the section after next is about.

• A raffle winner from a list of ticket holders.
• Who goes first in a game, and the whole order after that.
• A running order for nine people in a ninety-minute slot.
• Splitting a class of twenty-eight into seven groups of four.
• Which four names get the four spare tickets, and which two are next in line.
• A secret buddy for an end-of-term swap or a birthday-month pairing.
• Who takes the Monday stand-up for the next eight weeks.

Why picking a number between 1 and 10 is not random

The oldest draw there is has one person thinking of a number while everybody else guesses. It is not a draw. It is a guessing game about the person holding the number, and whoever knows them best wins it.

Several things go wrong at once. The person choosing is not sampling evenly: they have a number they like, they avoid 1 and 10 because the ends feel like a trick, and they avoid whatever they said the last time. The guessers know all that and aim at the middle, so two people say 7 and the winner is decided by who spoke faster. And there is no way to demonstrate afterwards that the number was fixed before the guessing began, which is the part that turns a close call into an argument.

The other informal methods have the same shape of flaw. Rock paper scissors rewards whoever has played it more. Pulling straws out of a fist rewards whoever stands closest. Alphabetical order gives the same answer every time, which looks neutral and quietly costs the same child at the back of the register something in every draw of the year.

• The person choosing has a favorite number and avoids the two ends.
• Guessers aim at where they think the chooser aimed, so reading people beats luck.
• Two people guess the same number and speed settles it.
• Nothing proves the number existed before the guessing started.
• Alphabetical or seat order returns the same winner every time.
• A hat full of folded paper depends on who folded the paper and how.

Drawing without replacement, so nobody wins twice

Three prizes does not mean pressing pick three times. The same name can come back, and the second time it does you are standing in front of a room explaining that the result is fair when it does not look fair.

Shuffle the list instead and read the top of it. Position one takes the first prize, position two the second, position three the third, and position four is your reserve for whoever has already gone home. Every name appears exactly once, which is what people mean by fair when they cannot quite say it.

Weighted draws need one extra step. If somebody bought five raffle tickets, their name goes in five times, and now the shuffle can hand the top three positions to the same person. For a weighted raffle, pick one name, delete every copy of it from the list, and pick again from what is left. Repeated picking is fine where it belongs: one question with one answer, like who talks through the next slide. Even there, cross the name off before you go round again, because asking the same person twice in ten minutes reads as singling them out.

Running the draw where people can watch it

A draw nobody saw is a decision you made. Fixing that costs about forty seconds and it is the difference between a result people accept and a result people relitigate in the car park.

The press-once rule is the one that gets broken, usually with good intentions. The name that came up has already won something, or they are off sick, or they are the organizer's own child. Decide all of those cases before you press, because any change you make after seeing the result is the thing people will remember about the draw.

1. Put the list on the screen the room is already looking at, or hand your phone to somebody who is not in the draw.
2. Read the names out, or at least say the count. Twenty-eight names on screen and twenty-eight people in the room is most of the audit.
3. Say the rule out loud before you press: one winner, no second go, and what happens if they are absent.
4. Press once. If you press twice because the first result surprised you, everyone saw you do it.
5. Read the result off the screen rather than from memory.
6. Leave it up for a minute so anyone who wants to look can look.

Decide the absent-winner rule before you draw

Somebody will win a prize while they are at the dentist. Put the rule on the sign-up sheet so the answer is already public before it is needed.

Pick one of these three and stick to it. The one to avoid is deciding in the moment, because whichever way you go, half the room will think you went that way because of who it was. If the sheet said present to win and the winner turns out to be the one person everybody likes, present to win still applies.

A running order is easier than a prize. Leave the absent name in the order and skip past it when the turn comes round, because the slot still exists if they walk in at half past two.

• Hold it: the prize waits a stated time, say until Friday, then goes back into the next draw.
• Redraw on the spot: the absent name comes out, you pick again, and they stay eligible for the next prize.
• Present to win: stated in advance on the sign-up, so nobody is surprised by it.

Splitting a group into teams

A shuffle is how you split a class without an argument. Shuffle every name, then deal them off the top in blocks.

Twenty-eight students into fours: shuffle once, then positions 1 to 4 are group one, 5 to 8 are group two, and so on down to group seven. Twenty-nine students gives you seven groups and one name left over, so add the spare to whichever table has room rather than creating a group of one. For two teams, alternate down the shuffled list, positions 1, 3 and 5 on one side and 2, 4 and 6 on the other. Cutting the shuffled list in half works equally well, and alternating is easier to explain to a room because people can watch it happen.

If you need a mix rather than a pure random split, do the random part last. Sort the class into the two or three categories you care about, shuffle each one on its own, and deal from both lists in turn so every team gets a share of each. The shuffle is still doing the choosing. You have only decided what it chooses within.

The list is where draws go wrong

Almost every draw that goes badly goes badly on the list rather than on the pick. The arithmetic is unarguable and the typing is not.

Read the count before you press. If the paper sign-up has thirty-one names and the list on screen says thirty-three, stop and find the two. It takes a minute and it catches a doubled name, which is the error nobody notices at the time and everybody minds afterwards.

• Two people called Jack. Add an initial or a surname, or the prize goes to whoever claims it first.
• A name pasted in twice by accident, which doubles that person's chance.
• Blank lines and trailing commas, which can come back as a winner with no name.
• A name spelled one way on your list and another way on the ticket stub.
• Somebody who signed up twice, once as a nickname and once in full.
• People who are on the register but told you they do not want to be in the draw.

When the result has to stay secret from you

The dividing line is who the answer belongs to. A raffle winner belongs to the room, so put it on a screen and read it out. A running order belongs to the room as well. A secret buddy belongs to one person, and the moment the result appears on a screen it has stopped being secret, because you have read it and you are the person everyone will ask.

For that job, use the Secret Santa generator on this site instead: it runs the draw on the server and gives each person a private link showing one name, and nobody sees the full set of pairings, including you. The occasion makes no difference to the shape of the problem. An end-of-term buddy swap, a leaving gift, a birthday-month pairing in a team of twelve: each one needs one private result per person and no master list anywhere.

Use the picker for anything where the result is meant to be public, or where you are the only person who needs to know it. That covers raffles, orders, teams, turns and spare tickets, which is most of what anybody draws for.