About the Random Letter Generator
This random letter generator picks letters from A to Z at random — one at a time for a quick decision, or dozens at once for games and practice sheets. You can limit the draw to vowels or consonants, exclude awkward letters such as Q, X and Z, choose upper case, lower case or a random mix, and decide whether the same letter may come up twice.
It is popular for word games like Scattergories, Categories and Stop (Tutti Frutti), for teachers making phonics and handwriting drills, for writers looking for a naming prompt, and for anyone who needs a fair letter draw for a raffle or team code. The tally chart shows which letters came up and how often.
The tool also shows the chance of any particular letter on each draw and, when repeats are allowed, the probability that all your letters are different — a small version of the famous birthday problem.
How to use the random letter generator
- 1Enter how many letters you want.
- 2Choose all letters, vowels only or consonants only.
- 3Pick uppercase, lowercase or mixed case.
- 4Turn off repeats if every letter must be different, and list any letters to exclude.
- 5Generate and use the letters — generate again for a new draw.
Formula and method
The pool is the alphabet filtered by your choice of vowels or consonants (Y is treated as a consonant) minus any excluded letters, leaving P letters. With repeats allowed, each of the n draws is independent and uniform, so any given letter has a 1 in P chance each time.
The probability that all n letters differ is the product of (P − i) ÷ P for each draw, the same reasoning as the birthday problem. With repeats turned off the tool performs a partial Fisher–Yates shuffle, so the letters are guaranteed distinct and n is capped at P.
- P
- Number of letters in the pool
- n
- Number of letters drawn
Worked examples
Five letters with a seed
With all 26 letters, each draw has a 1 in 26 (3.85%) chance of any specific letter. The chance that five draws are all different is 26 × 25 × 24 × 23 × 22 ÷ 26⁵ ≈ 66.4%, so about one time in three you will see a repeat.
Scattergories letter without Q, U, V, X, Y, Z
Removing six hard letters leaves 20 in the pool, so each has a 5% chance of being picked. With a single draw, the letters are trivially all different.
All 21 consonants, no repeats
There are 21 consonants (counting Y), so asking for 30 without repeats is capped at 21 — you get every consonant once in random order. Each has a 1 in 21 (4.76%) chance of being first.
Frequently asked questions
How do I pick a random letter?+
Set the count to 1 and generate. Each of the 26 letters has an equal 1 in 26 (about 3.85%) chance. Use the exclude box to remove letters you do not want, such as Q, X and Z for word games.
Is Y a vowel or a consonant here?+
Y is treated as a consonant, so the vowel pool is A, E, I, O and U (5 letters) and the consonant pool has 21 letters. Add Y to the exclude box if you want to leave it out.
Why do I get repeated letters?+
With repeats allowed each draw is independent, so duplicates are common: with 8 letters from 26 there is roughly a 70% chance at least one letter repeats. Turn off "Allow repeated letters" to force every letter to be different.
Which letters are best to exclude for Scattergories?+
Many players remove Q, U, V, X, Y and Z because few words start with them — the original Scattergories 20-sided die leaves out those same six letters.
Are the letters truly random?+
Without a seed, letters are drawn with the browser's cryptographically secure random generator, so each allowed letter is equally likely and unpredictable. A seed makes the sequence repeatable instead.