Wheel of Names

What Is a Wheel of Names?

A Wheel of Names is a visual random name picker for choosing one person, activity, prize, team, topic, or option from a list. Paste names one per line, press Spin, and watch the wheel land on a result that was selected before the animation began. The same tool can serve as a name spinner for a classroom, a wheel randomizer for a meeting, or a wheel random name generator for a giveaway.

ClockTools keeps the working surface practical. You can edit entries while seeing the wheel, use equal chances or precise integer weights, remove a selected name to prevent repeats, undo that removal, save several wheel setups locally, import or export common file formats, share a compressed setup, and review the current session history. No account or installation is required.

How Do You Use The ClockTools Wheel of Names?

1. Open Templates for a ready-made game or decision wheel, or replace the sample list with your own names and choices.
2. Review the loaded entries and edit any prompt, task, meal, or question that does not fit your group.
3. Open Odds when entries need different chances, then set each weight from 1 through 100.
4. Choose a palette, spin duration, effects, and whether a winner should be removed automatically.
5. Press the centre of the wheel or Spin The Wheel. The winner is fixed cryptographically before the animation begins.
6. Keep or remove the result, inspect its draw receipt, and continue until the selection round is complete.

You can also press Space or Enter when focus is outside an editor or button. The visible commitment appears before motion, and the result panel offers Keep, Remove, Copy, and Draw details controls after the spin. Presentation mode enlarges the wheel for a projector or shared screen without hiding the selected result.

Which Ready-Made Wheel Templates Can You Use?

Templates are editable starting points rather than locked games. Loading one replaces the current entries, applies a fitting palette, and recommends repeat or no-repeat play while preserving the visitor's duration, sound, confetti, and speech preferences. Review every party or classroom prompt for the people involved, allow anyone to skip, and remove unsuitable choices before spinning.

How Does Fair Selection Work?

ClockTools uses the browser Web Crypto API to create a fresh 128-bit random seed for every draw. It combines that seed with the ordered names, integer weights, wheel title, timestamp, and a counter, then hashes the data with SHA-256. Rejection sampling converts the digest into an unbiased ticket across the total weight. This avoids the uneven modulo shortcut that can favor some remainders when a random number range does not divide cleanly.

The winning ticket is fixed before the wheel begins moving. The spin is therefore a clear presentation of the result rather than the source of randomness. Afterward, Draw details shows the commitment, revealed seed, digest, ticket, weights, and selected entry. The built-in verifier recomputes that receipt and reports whether the stored result still matches. This is a useful local audit trail; it is not a claim that ClockTools or one browser can independently prove every outside condition.

Which Entries, Odds, and Styles Can You Use?

The editor accepts up to 500 non-empty entries and preserves repeated names when repeats are intentional. A duplicate check can identify and remove accidental duplicates while keeping the first occurrence. Secure shuffle changes the display order, alphabetical sort makes long lists easier to review, and import supports TXT, CSV, and JSON. Export uses the same formats so a list is portable.

Equal mode gives each distinct line the same weight. Weighted mode accepts a value from 1 through 100 for every entry and shows its exact probability before you spin the wheel of names. If three names have weights 1, 2, and 7, their chances are 10, 20, and 70 percent. We expose those odds instead of turning extra copies of a name into an invisible weighting trick. Color palettes, spin duration, sound, winner speech, confetti, and automatic removal are independent controls.

What Do the Wheel Style Options Change?

The Style tab controls presentation and what happens after a result. Palette, duration, sound, confetti, and speech do not influence the selected ticket. Automatic removal changes only which entries remain available for the next spin because the current winner is already fixed before animation begins.

What Stays in Your Browser?

Your current list, preferences, named saved wheels, and recent results are stored in local browser storage on the device you are using. Ordinary editing and drawing do not require an account or upload the names to ClockTools. Clearing site storage removes those local records. Private browsing, browser policies, and storage limits can prevent or shorten persistence, so export an important setup rather than treating local storage as a permanent archive.

The Share control creates a compressed URL containing the wheel setup but not the result history or any predetermined winner. Anyone who receives that URL can read the entries inside it, so do not share private names or confidential choices. A recipient generates a fresh random seed only when they start their own spin.

Where Is a Name Picker Wheel Useful?

Teachers can choose the next student, rotate reading order, assign a review question, or create balanced participation without scanning a class list. Meeting hosts can pick a presenter, select the next agenda item, rotate a facilitator, or break a harmless tie. Families and friends can choose a movie, restaurant, game, chore, travel stop, party challenge, or team order when every listed outcome is acceptable.

Event hosts can use a name picker wheel for a transparent door-prize draw, then remove each winner to run a no-repeat sequence. Creative teams can spin a wheel of prompts, colors, characters, themes, or exercises. The history panel records the sequence and allows CSV or JSON export for the current session. Chance should remain a tool for low-stakes, consented choices; health, safety, legal, financial, employment, grading, and other consequential decisions require an appropriate human process.

How Does ClockTools Support Different Devices?

The desktop workspace places the list editor, wheel, and history side by side. On a narrow screen, the same controls stack around a wheel sized to the available width. Buttons retain readable labels and stable tap targets, keyboard users can reach every command, and screen readers receive status announcements for spinning and selection. Reduced-motion preferences shorten the presentation and suppress decorative celebration while preserving the result.

Sound, speech, vibration, and confetti are optional. The result remains visible as text, so none of those effects is required to understand the outcome. Fullscreen presentation is designed for a classroom display, stream, workshop, or event screen, while the normal view keeps editing and audit details nearby.

Wheel of Names FAQ