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Free Pollyanna Name Generator
If your family has always called it a Pollyanna, this is the app for it. Everyone draws one name, nobody draws themselves, and everyone gets a wishlist to work from.
Type names or paste a list you already have. Whoever is organizing can take part or stay out of the hat entirely.
Couples, housemates, whoever swapped last year. Mark a pair and the drawing works around them.
Each person opens their own link and draws when they get to it. No passing a phone round the kitchen, no one peeking at the hat.
After drawing, everyone can add what they would like, with photos, and only the person who drew them sees it.
A Pollyanna is usually a family thing, run across a few households, and often with people who are not in the room when the names come out. That shapes what actually matters.
The old way needs everyone round one table at Thanksgiving. Here each person draws from their own link, whenever they get to it, wherever they are.
Impossible by design. The generator also refuses to hand out an invalid drawing at all - if your rules leave no valid combination, it tells you rather than quietly producing a broken one.
A parent looking after two children can hold all three sets of details, which is how most family exchanges actually work rather than one address per person.
The part that saves the gift. Everyone can list what they would like and attach photos, or share a product straight from a shopping app, and only their gifter can see it.
The same game, a different name for it. Everyone draws one person and buys one gift for them, in secret. Pollyanna is what it tends to be called around Philadelphia, eastern Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Delaware, where plenty of people have never called it anything else.
Completely, and the app treats them differently. A Pollyanna assigns each person somebody to buy for, so conflicts and wishlists matter. A White Elephant has everyone bring one gift and take turns picking or stealing, with no assignments at all - if that is what your group does, pick that instead at setup and the app draws a running order rather than names.
Yes, and that is the main reason to use it. Each person gets a personal link and draws whenever suits them, so a Pollyanna no longer depends on getting everybody round one table on the same evening.
No. Nobody needs an account, a password or an email address to take part - a link is enough. If you do have addresses, sending everyone their link by email is free and needs no upgrade.
Add them and reset the drawing so everyone is assigned again. If a change leaves the drawing broken, the organizer gets a banner explaining exactly what is wrong along with a one-click reset.