Consonant Generator
Random draws from the 21 English consonants — every letter except A, E, I, O, and U — with each one exactly equally likely. Runs entirely in your browser.
Generate random consonants
The pool is 21 letters: B C D F G H J K L M N P Q R S T V W X Y Z.
What consonant draws are for
Word-building rounds are the classic case: draw a handful of consonants, add a vowel or two from the Vowel Generator, and challenge the table to make the longest word. Spelling and phonics practice uses single consonant draws to pick which blend or initial sound a round targets. Category games in the style of "name a city starting with…" lean on consonant draws because most answers start with one. And handwriting worksheets alternate consonant draws to vary letter-formation practice without teacher bias creeping in.
Fair by construction, streaky by nature
Byte value 0 from the random source maps to B, the first consonant in alphabet order — that worked example is computed at build time by the same engine the button above calls. Every masked byte beyond the pool is discarded and redrawn, which is what makes each of the 21 consonants exactly equally likely. Equal probability still produces streaks: three rounds of S in a row is not a bug, it is what uniform randomness looks like over small samples. Over many draws the counts even out.
Adjusting the pool
This page keeps the classic 21-letter pool. To drop the awkward letters for a beginners’ round (Q, X, Z are common exclusions) or to restrict the pool to a phonics set like B D F G, use the main generator — its consonant filter composes with a custom exclude or include list, and the result box always reports the exact pool size the draw came from.
Frequently asked questions
Which letters does the consonant pool contain?
The 21 letters of the English alphabet that are not A, E, I, O, or U — that is B, C, D, F, G, H, J, K, L, M, N, P, Q, R, S, T, V, W, X, Y, Z. Y is included: as a letter it is conventionally grouped with consonants, even though it sometimes spells a vowel sound. If your rules exclude Y, the main generator’s exclude list handles that in one keystroke.
Is Q as likely as S?
Yes — exactly 1 in 21 each. The engine is uniform by construction and never weights letters by how often they appear in English words, so "hard" letters like Q, X, and Z turn up just as often as N or T. That is usually what a fair game round wants; if it is not, you want a curated pool, not a biased die.
How many consonants can I draw without repeats?
Up to 21 — the whole pool, which gives you a uniformly random ordering of every consonant. A request for more unique consonants than the pool holds is refused with an explanation instead of silently repeating letters.
Is anything I draw uploaded or stored?
No. The draw is JavaScript running in your own browser using your device’s cryptographic random source. Nothing is transmitted, logged, or kept.
Uniform means uniform: every consonant has probability 1/21 per draw — the engine never weights letters by English frequency. Draws are local to your browser and never transmitted. See the methodology page.