About the Random Team Generator
This random team generator takes a list of names and splits it into random teams or groups. Choose either how many teams you need or how many people should be in each group, and the tool shuffles everyone and deals them out like cards so team sizes never differ by more than one person.
Teachers use it to form classroom groups and lab partners, coaches and PE teachers to pick sides for five-a-side or pickup games, managers to set up workshop breakouts and hackathon teams, and game hosts to split a party for trivia night. Because the draw is random, nobody can accuse the captain of picking favourites.
Paste one name per line (commas also work). The shuffle uses a secure random source; add a seed if you want to reproduce the same teams later, for example to share them with the group.
How to use the random team generator
- 1Paste or type your names, one per line.
- 2Choose whether to split by number of teams or by people per team.
- 3Enter the number of teams or the group size.
- 4Read the teams from the list or table and share them with the group.
- 5Generate again for a new draw, or add a seed to keep this exact split.
Formula and method
The list is shuffled with the Fisher–Yates algorithm, which makes every possible ordering equally likely. The shuffled names are then dealt round-robin into k teams, just like dealing cards, so the largest and smallest team differ by at most one person.
When you set people per team, the number of teams is n ÷ size rounded up, and the leftover people are spread across teams rather than leaving one tiny group. For example 14 people in groups of 4 becomes 4 teams (two of 4 and two of 3), not three 4s and a lonely pair.
- n
- Number of names in the list
- k
- Number of teams
- size
- Target people per team
Worked examples
12 students into 3 teams
Twelve names divide evenly into three teams of four. The shuffled list is dealt one name at a time to Team 1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3… The seed "class" reproduces this exact split.
10 players into 4 teams
Ten does not divide by four, so 10 ÷ 4 = 2 remainder 2: two teams get 3 players and two teams get 2. Sizes never differ by more than one.
14 people in groups of about 4
With a target of 4 per group, 14 ÷ 4 = 3.5 rounds up to 4 teams. Dealing 14 people into 4 teams gives two groups of 4 and two of 3 — fairer than three 4s and a leftover pair.
Frequently asked questions
How do I split a group into random teams fairly?+
Shuffle the whole list so every order is equally likely, then deal people out one at a time to each team in turn. That is exactly what this tool does, and it keeps team sizes within one person of each other.
What happens if the number of people does not divide evenly?+
The extra people are spread across teams, so some teams have one more member than others. For example 10 people in 3 teams gives one team of 4 and two teams of 3.
Can I make balanced teams by skill level?+
This tool makes purely random teams. For rough skill balance, list your strongest players first and split them separately, then split everyone else and combine the results team by team.
Can I get the same teams again later?+
Yes. Type any word into the seed box; the same seed and the same list of names in the same order will always produce identical teams, which is handy for sharing or checking a draw.
Is there a limit to how many names I can enter?+
You can enter up to 500 names and create up to 50 teams, which covers classrooms, sports clubs, conferences and most corporate workshops.