Random name picker, team maker and Secret Santa

Paste a list of names, one per line, and draw from it three ways: winners for a giveaway or a class, random teams, or a Secret Santa that keeps couples and households apart. Every draw comes back with a code that replays it and a CSV of the result, and teams and Secret Santa come with a sheet to print. Free, no account, nothing stored.

What it does, and why it is here

Names in a hat work until someone asks to see the hat. After a giveaway, a class draw or a team split, the people who did not win want to know the draw was not arranged. Folded papers also fail at Secret Santa, where somebody pulls their own name, or their partner’s, and the draw starts over.

This page runs those three draws and gives each one a draw code: the same list, in the same order, with the same options and that code, gives the same result again, for anyone. Publish the list and the code with the winner, and every participant can replay the draw. I think that is what a draw owes the people in it: not an animation, but a result they can check.

What you fill in

• What to draw — Pick winners (the default), Split into teams or Secret Santa. It decides which fields below are read.
• Names — one entry per line, up to 500 entries of 80 characters each; blank lines are ignored, and a list pasted on a single line is split on its commas. To pick winners, a name written twice is two entries: it has two chances and can take two places. Teams and Secret Santa refuse a name written twice, and a Secret Santa needs three people at least.
• Winners (Pick winners) — how many to draw, from 1 up to the number of entries; 1 by default.
• Teams (Split into teams) — how many teams, from 2 up to 100 and no more than there are people; 2 by default.
• Who must not draw each other (Secret Santa) — optional. One group per line, names separated by commas or &: Alice & Bob for a couple, Carol, David, Emma for a household. A name must be written exactly as in the list, or the draw is refused and the stray name quoted.
• What the draw is for — optional, 80 characters at most, under Title and draw code. It is printed on the Secret Santa slips and the team cards.
• Replay a draw — optional, under the same heading. Paste the code of an earlier draw, with or without its dash, to get that draw again. Left empty, a new code is drawn. The field opens empty after every draw, so pressing Draw again always draws anew.

What you get back

• Pick winners — The winner, or 3 winners, in the order drawn, the first name being the first drawn. Under it, the rest of the list in the order the draw left it, numbered after the winners: the runners-up, for when a winner never answers.
• Split into teams — Team 1, Team 2 and so on, with their members. Sizes differ by one person at most, and when the list does not divide evenly the first teams get the extra member: seven people in three teams come out three, two and two.
• Secret Santa — Who gives to whom: one line per giver, in the order of your list, each recipient hidden behind its own Reveal, so the organizer can check one line without seeing the others. The draw is a single chain through everyone: nobody draws themselves, no two people draw each other, and nobody draws a member of their own exclusion group.
• Entries — how many entries the list held: check it before announcing anything.
• Draw code — ten digits, written 12345-67890. Same list, same order, same options, same code: same result. Change the order of the list and the result changes, even with the same code.

Two downloads appear under the answer once you have drawn, both carrying the draw on the screen:

• Download as CSV, for every draw. Winners give one row per entry with its rank, the name, and Winner beside those drawn. Teams give one row per person with their team number. A Secret Santa gives one row per giver with the recipient in the clear: keep that file to yourself.
• Download as PDF, for teams and Secret Santa. For a Secret Santa, fold-over slips the size of a business card, ten to an A4 sheet, with dashed cut lines: the occasion and the giver’s name on one half, You give a present to and the recipient upside down on the other. Cut, fold along the dashes, and hand each slip to the name on the outside. For teams, one A6 card per team, four to a sheet, with the occasion, the team number and its members. Winners have no PDF.

What it does not do

• The code proves that a result follows from the list; it does not prove the organizer drew only once. Anyone can type a code into Replay a draw, so an organizer could try codes until one suits them. For a giveaway that has to convince, publish the list, in its order, before the draw, draw once in front of the participants, on a stream or a shared screen, and publish the code with the winner.
• It does not collect entries, contact winners or e-mail Secret Santa assignments: you tell each person, or hand out the slips.
• It does not weight entries, except by writing a name twice, and it does not balance teams by skill or age: teams are random.
• It remembers nothing: a draw whose code you did not note cannot be found again.

Which Secret Santa exclusions still leave a draw

An exclusion group can hold half the list at most: in a single chain, each member gives to and receives from someone outside the group, which takes at least as many people outside as inside. Beyond half, the draw is refused with These exclusions leave no possible draw. Cases submitted to this tool:

With three people and one couple excluded, both partners could only give to the third person, and only one of them can.

Questions

Is this random name picker free, and do I need an account?

It is free and needs no account, and the list you paste is not stored.

How do I prove a giveaway draw was fair?

Publish the list, in its order, and the draw code with the winner: anyone can paste both into this page, with the same number of winners, and get the same result. To show you drew only once, draw live.

Can the same person win twice?

Only if their name is on the list twice. Picking winners treats every line as an entry, so a name written twice has two chances and can take two places; remove duplicates if each person should win once.

Can someone draw their own name in Secret Santa?

No: the draw is a single chain through everyone, so nobody draws themselves and no two people draw each other. Couples and households entered as exclusions do not draw each other either.

Why does it say the exclusions leave no possible draw?

Because an exclusion group holds more than half of the list, or the groups together leave somebody with no one to give to. Shorten a group or add people to the list.

How do I get the same draw again?

Paste its code into Replay a draw, with the same list in the same order and the same options.

Sources and further reading

• Secret Santa — the custom, its names and its variants.
• Derangement — the mathematics of a draw in which nobody gets their own name.