Team Generator
Split a list of names into fair random teams or groups.
About the team generator
Paste your names, choose either how many teams you want or how many people should be in each, and it deals them out. Teams come out within one person of each other in size, and you can rename them, reshuffle, and copy the result as text.
The shuffle uses your browser's cryptographic random source, so there is no pattern to find and no bias towards the order you typed the names in.
Why it deals round-robin instead of slicing
The obvious way to split twelve people into five teams is to cut the shuffled list into five chunks. That gives teams of 3, 3, 2, 2, 2 β but it also means the chunk boundaries do all the work, and remainders pile onto the first groups.
Dealing one person to each team in turn, like dealing cards, guarantees sizes differ by at most one and spreads the remainder evenly. With a properly shuffled list both are fair, but round-robin makes the sizes obviously fair too, which matters when people are watching the split happen.
Where it gets used
- Classrooms β group work without the social pain of picking teams.
- Sports and games β five-a-side, quiz teams, board game partners.
- Workshops β breakout groups that mix people who would not otherwise sit together.
- Standups and rotas β splitting a backlog or an on-call roster.
- Secret Santa pairings β set the team size to two.
Frequently asked questions
How do I split a list of names into random teams?
Paste the names one per line, pick the number of teams (or the size you want each team to be), and press shuffle. Teams come out within one person of each other.
Is it actually random?
Yes β it uses your browser's cryptographic random number generator with a Fisher-Yates shuffle, so every arrangement is equally likely and the order you typed the names has no influence.
Can I make teams of a specific size?
Yes. Switch to "By people per team" and set the size; the number of teams is worked out from your list, with the last team taking any remainder.
Can I save or share the teams?
Copy them as text with the copy button, which produces a plain list you can paste into a message, document or chat.