Random Team Generator

What this generator does

Splits one list of people into random teams of roughly equal size. You say how many teams you want and the sizes fall out; the random group generator works from the other end, taking the people per group and letting the number of groups fall out. It is aimed at the everyday split: PE lessons, workshop breakouts, five-a-side, a quiz night. It divides people at random and nothing else; it has no notion of skill, seniority or who works well together.

How to use this tool

1. Enter participant names, one per line.
2. Choose the number of teams.
3. Save the roster to this device if you will use it again.
4. Generate to see your random teams, and reshuffle any time.

Understanding the controls

Number of teams

Divides everyone into exactly this many teams. When the list does not divide evenly the remainder is spread one person at a time across the teams, so 29 people into 4 teams gives 8/7/7/7 rather than 7/7/7/8 with one oversized group.

Participants

One name per line; blank lines are ignored. The roster can be saved to this device from the panel under the box and loaded again on any tool here that takes a list of names.

Worked examples

A class of 29 into 4 teams

Teams come out at 8, 7, 7 and 7 — the remainder is spread one per team rather than piling onto the last one.

A workshop of 23 into 5 teams

Teams come out at 5, 5, 5, 4 and 4. To set the size of each group and let the number of groups follow, the random group generator takes people per group instead.

Common use cases

• Sports and classroom team splits
• Work exercises and icebreakers
• Game nights needing balanced random teams

How this generator works

The full list of names is shuffled first, using a Fisher–Yates shuffle driven by your browser's Web Crypto random generator — a method that gives every possible ordering the same chance, unlike repeatedly picking a name at random from the list. The shuffled names are then dealt out one at a time around the teams, like dealing cards. Dealing rather than slicing the list into blocks is what keeps the sizes even automatically: the remainder lands one per team, so no team is ever short by more than one person.

Randomness and fairness

The full list of names is shuffled once with a Fisher-Yates shuffle driven by your browser's cryptographic random number generator, then dealt out into teams in order. Because the shuffle produces every possible ordering with equal probability, every person is equally likely to land in any given team, and no position in the list you paste — first, last, or middle — carries any advantage.

For how randomness is produced across the whole site, see how Generate Random works.

Limitations and good to know

• Teams are balanced by size only. The tool knows nothing about skill, ability, friendship groups or keeping particular people apart — if ability matters, the balanced team allocator splits by rating, and if particular people must be kept apart or together the group constraint solver takes that as a rule.
• There is no memory between generations, so running it two weeks in a row can easily produce similar teams. Regenerate if you want a visibly different split.
• The roster can be saved to this device from the panel on this page and loaded again next time — here, or on any other tool on this site that takes a list of names. The teams themselves are not kept, so copy a split you want before reloading.

Common mistakes

Expecting the teams to be balanced by ability

They are balanced only by headcount. The tool cannot see anything about the people on the list, so a random split will sometimes put the four strongest players together. If that matters, seed the teams by hand first and use this only for the remaining places.

Reshuffling until the teams look right

Every reshuffle is an independent fair draw, but repeatedly redrawing until you like the answer is no longer a random split — it is your choice wearing a random split's clothes. If you need a particular arrangement, it is more honest to arrange it openly.

Practical tips

• Paste directly from a register or spreadsheet column: one name per line is all it needs, and blank lines are ignored rather than becoming an empty team member.
• The teams are headed Team 1, Team 2 and so on. Decide what each number stands for before you generate, so the result can be read out as it lands.

Privacy and your data

Names are processed entirely in your browser. Nothing is uploaded and no name appears in the page address, so a shared link never carries your list. Nothing is stored between visits either unless you press Save in the panel on this page, which keeps that roster in this browser's local storage until you delete it there. Analytics sees only that a split happened and how many teams were made, never who was on the list.

Frequently asked questions

Are the teams actually balanced?

Team sizes are balanced automatically — if the names don't divide evenly, leftover members are spread across teams so no team has more than one extra person. Who ends up on which team is randomised; the tool doesn't weigh skill or ability.

Can I choose the number of teams instead of team size?

This page takes the number of teams, from 2 to 50, and the sizes follow. To set the size of each group and let the number of groups follow, use the random group generator.

Can I name the teams?

Not on this page: the teams are headed "Team 1", "Team 2", and so on. Copy the result and put your own names over the numbers.