Regular expression for first and last name

Question

For website validation purposes, I need first name and last name validation.

For the first name, it should only contain letters, can be several words with spaces, an

Answer 1

Try these solutions, for maximum compatibility, as I have already posted here:

JavaScript:

var nm_re = /^(?:((([^0-9_!¡?÷?¿/\\+=@#$%ˆ&*(){}|~<>;:[\]'’,\-.\s])){1,}(['’,\-\.]){0,1}){2,}(([^0-9_!¡?÷?¿/\\+=@#$%ˆ&*(){}|~<>;:[\]'’,\-. ]))*(([ ]+){0,1}(((([^0-9_!¡?÷?¿/\\+=@#$%ˆ&*(){}|~<>;:[\]'’,\-\.\s])){1,})(['’\-,\.]){0,1}){2,}((([^0-9_!¡?÷?¿/\\+=@#$%ˆ&*(){}|~<>;:[\]'’,\-\.\s])){2,})?)*)$/;

HTML5:

<input type="text" name="full_name" id="full_name" pattern="^(?:((([^0-9_!¡?÷?¿/\\+=@#$%ˆ&*(){}|~<>;:[\]'’,\-.\s])){1,}(['’,\-\.]){0,1}){2,}(([^0-9_!¡?÷?¿/\\+=@#$%ˆ&*(){}|~<>;:[\]'’,\-. ]))*(([ ]+){0,1}(((([^0-9_!¡?÷?¿/\\+=@#$%ˆ&*(){}|~<>;:[\]'’,\-\.\s])){1,})(['’\-,\.]){0,1}){2,}((([^0-9_!¡?÷?¿/\\+=@#$%ˆ&*(){}|~<>;:[\]'’,\-\.\s])){2,})?)*)$" required>

Answer 2

First name would be

"([a-zA-Z]{3,30}\s*)+"

If you need the whole first name part to be shorter than 30 letters, you need to check that seperately, I think. The expression ".{3,30}" should do that.

Your last name requirements would translate into

"[a-zA-Z]{3,30}"

but you should check these. There are plenty of last names containing spaces.

Answer 3

A simple function using preg_match in php

<?php
function name_validation($name) {
    if (!preg_match("/^[a-zA-Z ]*$/", $name) === false) {
        echo "$name is a valid name";
    } else {
        echo "$name is not a valid name";
    }
}

//Test
name_validation('89name');
?>

Answer 4

This is what I use.

This regex accepts only names with minimum characters, from A-Z a-z ,space and -.

Names example:

Ionut Ionete, Ionut-Ionete Cantemir, Ionete Ionut-Cantemirm Ionut-Cantemir Ionete-Second

The limit of name's character is 3. If you want to change this, modify {3,} to {6,}

([a-zA-Z\-]+){3,}\s+([a-zA-Z\-]+){3,}

Answer 5

This regex work for me (was using in Angular 8) :

([a-zA-Z',.-]+( [a-zA-Z',.-]+)*){2,30}

It will be invalid if there is:-

1. Any whitespace start or end of the name
2. Got symbols e.g. @
3. Less than 2 or more than 30

Example invalid First Name (whitespace)

Example valid First Name :

Answer 6

For simplicities sake, you can use:

(.*)\s(.*)

The thing I like about this is that the last name is always after the first name, so if you're going to enter this matched groups into a database, and the name is John M. Smith, the 1st group will be John M., and the 2nd group will be Smith.