title: Is there a way to randomly select a cell based on weighted probability in Excel?
body: <p>Say there's a list of names:</p>
  
  <pre><code>Peter
  Andrew
  James
  John
  Philip
  Thomas
  Matthew
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>I want to select one name randomly, and the formulas I'm currently using to do this are <code>=RANDBETWEEN(1,7)</code> and <code>=VLOOKUP(A3,$A$6:$B$12,2)</code>.</p>
  
  <p>However, is there a way to give each name a weight so that there is a higher chance for one particular name to be selected, because the only way I can think of doing that would be to add duplicate names to the list:</p>
  
  <pre><code>Peter
  Peter
  Peter
  Peter
  Peter
  Andrew
  Andrew
  Andrew
  James
  James
  John
  Philip
  Thomas
  Thomas
  Thomas
  Thomas
  Matthew
  Mathhew
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>This way Peter would have the greatest probability of being randomly selected since the name appears the most, but I'd prefer not to do it this way if there's a more efficient way of doing this.</p>
  
  <p>Any response is appreciated.</p>