Paste a list of names, choose how many teams you need, and get fair, balanced groups in one click. Ideal for sports, classroom group work, game nights, and any time you need to split people without anyone calling it rigged.
How it works
The tool reads each non-empty line as one name. It then shuffles the full list with an unbiased Fisher–Yates shuffle, drawing random indices from the browser’s Web Crypto API so every possible ordering is equally likely. Finally it deals the shuffled names round-robin into the number of teams you chose — first name to team 1, second to team 2, and so on, wrapping around. Round-robin dealing guarantees the teams stay as even as possible: their sizes never differ by more than one person.
Why Fisher–Yates with Web Crypto
Not all shuffles are equal. A naive shuffle — picking a random position for each name independently — produces biased results where some arrangements are more likely than others. The Fisher–Yates shuffle eliminates that bias: for a list of n names, it makes exactly n factorial arrangements equally likely. Using the browser’s Web Crypto API as the random source means the indices are drawn from a cryptographically strong generator rather than the predictable Math.random(). The result is genuinely fair in a way that matters when real stakes are involved, like choosing teams for a competitive game.
Example
Enter 7 names — Ana, Ben, Cara, Dan, Eve, Finn, Gita — and ask for 2 teams. After shuffling, a round-robin deal might give:
- Team 1: Finn, Ana, Dan, Eve
- Team 2: Gita, Cara, Ben
Seven people split into 4 and 3 — balanced. Click again for a different split.
| Input | Teams | Resulting sizes |
|---|---|---|
| 6 names | 2 | 3, 3 |
| 7 names | 2 | 4, 3 |
| 10 names | 3 | 4, 3, 3 |
| 15 names | 4 | 4, 4, 4, 3 |
Practical uses
Classroom group work: paste the class register, set the team count to the number of tables, and get groups in seconds. Re-pick at the start of each session for variety without anyone feeling like they always end up with the same people.
Sports pickup games: paste the players who showed up, split into two or more even teams, and avoid the captains-pick method that always makes the last-chosen person feel awkward.
Hackathons and workshops: split participants randomly at the start to mix skill sets and departments before letting teams self-organise further.
Game nights: split players into balanced teams for trivia, party games, or any format where even numbers matter.
Everything runs in your browser, so your list is never uploaded.