Random Letter Picker
Scattergories-style random letter A-Z.
Built and maintained by Paul Clark, Redmoon Software · Last checked
One tap produces a giant random letter for Scattergories, Categories, name games, or classroom alphabet practice. Easy mode, on by default, skips Q, V, X, and Z — the four hardest letters to play — leaving 22 in the pool. Switch on no-repeats and the tool deals out the whole alphabet before any letter comes up twice, then quietly resets itself for the next cycle.
Set. Leave easy mode on to skip Q, V, X, and Z, or turn it off for the full alphabet.
Click Pick a letter to see a result.
Options
Recent results
- No history yet.
How it works
- Set. Leave easy mode on to skip Q, V, X, and Z, or turn it off for the full alphabet.
- Pick. Click "Pick a letter" to get your random letter.
- Repeat. Click again to draw a new letter for the next round.
- Cycle. Enable no-repeats to see every letter once before any come around again.
About the Random Letter Picker
What easy mode actually removes
Ticking Easy mode drops Q, V, X and Z from the alphabet, leaving twenty-two letters. Those four are excluded because in a timed word game they are not a challenge so much as a dead end — most players produce nothing at all for X, and the round becomes a wait rather than a game.
It is worth knowing exactly which four, because the letters just outside that cut are the interesting ones. J, K and U stay in, and they are hard without being hopeless, which is usually the difficulty a group actually wants.
No repeats works through the whole alphabet
With No repeats this session on, the tool records the letters it has drawn and picks only from those left. Work through all of them and it clears the record and starts again, so a long session cycles the full alphabet before anything comes round twice.
The record respects the mode you are in: easy mode cycles through its twenty-two letters. Switching modes mid-session mixes the two records, so if you started in easy mode and switch, the excluded letters can appear immediately. Pick a mode before you start.
Games this is for
- Scattergories and its variants, where one letter drives every category on the sheet.
- Categories or the alphabet game, where each player names something starting with the drawn letter.
- Classroom warm-ups: everyone names a country, an animal and a food for the same letter.
- Breaking a tie by whoever answers first for a fresh letter.
Frequently asked questions
Why are Q, V, X, and Z excluded by default?
They're the hardest letters to find answers for in Scattergories-style games, so easy mode leaves them out. Untick the easy mode box in Options to play with the full 26-letter alphabet.
How does the no-repeats option work?
The tool remembers which letters it has already dealt and only draws from the remainder. Once every letter in the current pool has appeared, the memory clears automatically and a fresh cycle begins.
Does easy mode change how no-repeats behaves?
Yes. With easy mode on, a full no-repeat cycle covers the 22 easier letters; turn it off and the cycle runs through all 26 before anything repeats.
Is every letter drawn with the same probability?
Yes. Each pick uses your browser's crypto.getRandomValues, so every letter currently in play has an identical chance — E is no more likely than W.
Is it usable for classroom letter games?
Very much so. The letter renders large enough to read from the back of a room, and the History list doubles as a record of which letters you've already called this lesson.
Related randomizers
Further reading
- Generating a set of distinct colors for tags, teams, and charts
Not every use of a random color is about art. When you need a handful of clearly different colors to label tags, teams, or chart series, a random palette gives you a fast starting set — here's how to draw one and clean it up.
- Naming a baby around a constraint you already have
Most couples aren't naming from a blank slate — they're naming around a rule: match a sibling's initial, honor a grandparent's letter, or stay unisex. Here's how to turn those constraints into filters instead of fighting them.
- Picking a baby name is two different problems: discovery, then decision
Early on, the problem is too few ideas. Later, it's too many good ones. Here's why a baby name generator needs two separate modes — filtered random discovery and paste-your-shortlist decision — and a routine for each phase.
- A random letter for Scattergories that nobody can argue with
Picking a letter from your head is never really random — and someone always calls it. Here's how a random letter picker, with an easy mode that skips the impossible letters, keeps word games fair and moving.
- Scattergories without the arguments: fair letters, honest answers, and a timer that ends it
Scattergories lives or dies on three things: a letter nobody can call rigged, categories everyone can actually answer, and a clock that stops the round before the table starts negotiating. Here's how to run it cleanly with just a phone.
- How to run a virtual bingo night that doesn't fall apart
Hosting bingo for a remote team, a classroom, or a family across time zones is easy to get wrong: identical cards, called numbers nobody can verify, and 75-ball vs 90-ball confusion. Here's a clean way to run it.
- Party games with zero setup: a host's cheat sheet
The best party games need nothing but your phone and a few willing people. Here's how to read the room, pick the right game for the moment, and keep the energy up without printouts, props, or a rules lawyer.