Everything the random name picker does, how each control behaves, and the routines teachers, managers and hosts have settled on after using it for a while.
01Adding names
The list box on the right takes one name per line. Paste a column straight out of Excel, Google Sheets or your register and each row becomes a slice on the wheel; blank lines and trailing spaces are ignored, so a messy paste still works. You can also type names one at a time and press Enter between them.
Names stay in your browser. Close the tab, come back tomorrow, and the same list is waiting, including who has already been picked. Nothing is uploaded, which is why there is no sign-in and no account to make.
Duplicate names are allowed on purpose. If two students share a first name, add a surname initial so the wheel can tell them apart; if you want someone to have double the chance, list them twice.
02Spinning and picking
Press SPIN or tap the Space bar. The wheel slows down and stops on one name, which is read out on screen and added to the Picked list in the order it came up. Every name has exactly the same chance on every spin: the result is drawn with the browser’s cryptographic random number generator first and the animation is then played to land on it, so the pointer never lies.
The Picked list is the record of the session. Copy it with one click when you need to paste the order into a document or a chat.
- Remove each name after it’s picked
- On by default. A picked name leaves the wheel, so nobody is called twice until everyone has had a turn.
- Put names back on the wheel
- Returns the removed names for a fresh round without retyping the list.
- Pick in a row
- Type how many you need and spin once; the wheel draws that many names one after another and lists them in order.
- Fullscreen
- Hides everything except the wheel so it reads from the back of a classroom or on a shared screen.
03Classroom routines that work
Cold-calling is the main job. Leave removal on, spin once per question, and the wheel works through the whole class before anyone repeats. Reset it at the start of each lesson with Put names back, or keep the same cycle running across a week so quiet students get called as often as confident ones.
For reading turns or presentations, use Pick in a row with the class size as the number and copy the Picked list: that is your running order, decided in front of everyone in ten seconds. For group work, the team generator does the splitting in one go instead of spinning repeatedly.
This page runs without ads and without anything moving in the margins, so it can stay up on a projector. It also keeps working if the classroom wifi drops once the page has loaded.
04Meetings, giveaways and games
Stand-ups go faster when nobody decides the order: paste the team, Pick in a row, done. The same move settles who takes notes, who demos first, or who picks the restaurant.
For a raffle or a social giveaway, paste the entrants and spin live so people can see the draw. If you have hundreds of entries or need to draw several winners with a visible winner list, the giveaway wheel is the same picker set up for that, and the random number generator handles numbered tickets.
At home it settles the small arguments: who goes first, who gets the last slice, whose turn it is to pick the film.
05Fairness, privacy and limits
The picker cannot be steered. There is no hidden weighting, no “favourite” setting, and the spin animation is decoration on top of a result that is already decided. If a student accuses the wheel of being rigged, this explainer covers why streaks happen in genuinely random draws.
Privacy is simple because there is nothing to protect: the list lives in your browser’s local storage on your device, and the site never sees it. Clearing your browser data clears the list.
There is no hard cap on names. Thirty read clearly; past sixty the labels get small and Fullscreen helps. For very long lists, a numbered draw with the random number generator is easier to read than a wheel with two hundred slivers.
06Name picker vs. wheel of names vs. random list
A wheel of names, a name picker wheel and a random name picker are the same tool with different labels. The thing that varies between sites is what happens after the pick: whether names are removed, whether you can draw several at once, whether the list survives a refresh, and whether the page carries ads. This one removes by default, draws in a row, saves locally and stays ad-free.
If you want a wheel with custom colours, weights or images rather than a plain list of names, build it on the main wheel spinner instead; the name picker is deliberately the stripped-down version.