About this tool
A free random group generator that runs entirely in your browser. Paste a list of names, decide whether you want a fixed number of groups or a fixed group size, and click Generate. The tool shuffles the full list and splits it into balanced groups — no group is more than one person bigger than another.
The names are never sent anywhere. No accounts, no sign-up. Your roster — or whatever list you're working with — stays in the browser tab and never touches a server. The site uses cookieless, privacy-friendly page analytics that never sees the names.
How to use it
- Choose By number of groups if you know how many groups you want, or By group size if you know how many people each group should have.
- Type the number into the box. The tool accepts 1–100.
- Paste your list of names into the textarea — one per line. Blank lines are ignored.
- Click Generate groups. The full list shuffles and splits into balanced groups, displayed as cards.
- Click Generate again for a fresh shuffle. Use Copy all to grab the result as text, or Print to hand out group assignments on paper.
Saving your class lists
Paste a list once, click Save this list, give it a name — Period 3, Homeroom, Chess club — and pick it from the Saved classes menu next time. The same saved classes also appear in the Random Name Picker and Random Pair Generator, so you only enter the roster once and can reach for it anywhere a class list is wanted.
Saved classes live in your browser on this device only. Nothing is uploaded, nothing goes to a server, there is no account to sign into. The list is cleared if you clear the browser's site data, and you can delete classes individually or all at once from the control. Nothing is saved until you press Save — the tool never writes to storage on its own. Because these are children's names, don't save lists on a computer that students also use.
How balanced groups actually work
"Balanced" sounds simple but trips up most ad-hoc groupings. If you have 13 students and want 3 groups, you can't divide evenly — but you can still keep the sizes within one of each other. The right answer is 5, 4, 4. The wrong answer is 5, 5, 3 (one student stuck in a group of 3 while two others get a 5) or 4, 4, 4, 1 (an orphan).
This tool spreads the leftovers across the first groups so the sizes always land within one. The same logic applies when you group by size: 11 names in groups of 4 becomes 4, 4, 3 — not 4, 4, 2, 1 with an awkward singleton.
Under the hood, the shuffle is a Fisher-Yates shuffle — the standard provably-uniform shuffle. Every possible arrangement of names is equally likely, so re-clicking Generate genuinely gives you a fresh draw, not a slight variation of the previous one.
Where it's useful
- Classroom group projects. Avoid the same friend-clusters every time. Pasting the roster once and clicking Generate twice usually produces a healthier mix than waiting for students to self-organize.
- Lab partners and pair work. Set group size to 2 and you've got fair pair assignments — no one feels picked last.
- Workshop break-out rooms. Faster than counting people off, and the result is visible to everyone, which heads off "wait, am I in 3 or 4?"
- Sports team formation. Pickup games at recess, intramural teams, drills that need rotating partners.
- Retreat or training icebreakers. Mixing departments or grade levels works better when a tool does the mixing — reduces the perception of cliques being deliberate.
- Code-review or peer-review pairs. Set group size to 2, generate weekly. Reviewers pair with someone different each time without anyone tracking it manually.
Why "fair random" matters in a classroom
Group assignments are one of the small daily moments where students are most attuned to fairness. If the same students seem to end up working together again and again — or one student keeps landing alone — the perception of bias compounds even when the teacher's intentions are neutral. A visible, random tool diffuses that:
- It removes you from the call. If the tool made the groups, no one in particular is responsible. The "why am I with him?" complaint loses its target.
- It produces verifiably balanced sizes. No one ends up in a group of 2 while everyone else is in a group of 4. The math is the same for everyone.
- It's repeatable. Click Generate again and you get a different arrangement. Students see the randomness happening; the result feels earned, not chosen.
Frequently asked questions
How does the generator handle uneven splits?
It spreads the leftovers across the first groups so sizes are always within one of each other. 13 names into 3 groups becomes 5, 4, 4 — never 5, 5, 3.
Is the shuffle actually random?
Yes. Uses a Fisher-Yates shuffle on the browser's standard random number generator. Every name has an equal probability of landing in any group, and every possible grouping is roughly equally likely.
Can I copy or print the groups?
Yes. Copy all copies them as plain text. Print opens your browser's print dialog with a clean print stylesheet — handy for printing a sheet to hand out at the start of class.
Can I keep regenerating until I like the result?
Absolutely. Each click of Generate reshuffles the full list. The group count or size you chose stays put.
Are saved class lists private?
Yes. Saved classes live in your browser's local storage on this device only — never on a server, never in an account. They're shared across the AnchorKite tools that take a class list (the group generator, the Random Name Picker and the Random Pair Generator) because those tools run on the same site, but they stay on this device. Saved classes are cleared if the browser's site data is cleared, and you can remove individual classes or all of them from the control at any time. Because these are children's names, don't save lists on a computer that students also use.
Is my list sent anywhere?
No. The generator runs entirely in your browser, and the names you paste never leave it: they are never sent to a server or logged. The site uses cookieless, privacy-friendly page analytics that counts visits but never sees the names. If you choose to save a class list, it is kept in local storage on this device only.
Can I use this for things other than students?
Anywhere you need balanced random teams: workshops, sports, secret santa (group size 2), retreats, board-game teams, code-review rotations.