Splitting a person's name into forename and surname

Question

ok so basically I am asking the question of their name I want this to be one input rather than Forename and Surname.

Now is there any way of splitting this name? and

Answer 1

This is how I do it in my application:

def get_first_name(fullname):
    firstname = ''
    try:
        firstname = fullname.split()[0] 
    except Exception as e:
        print str(e)
    return firstname

def get_last_name(fullname):
    lastname = ''
    try:
        index=0
        for part in fullname.split():
            if index > 0:
                if index > 1:
                    lastname += ' ' 
                lastname +=  part
            index += 1
    except Exception as e:
            print str(e)
    return lastname

def get_last_word(string):
    return string.split()[-1]

print get_first_name('Jim Van Loon')
print get_last_name('Jim Van Loon')
print get_last_word('Jim Van Loon')