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Illustration by Reagan Ray

Separate First and Last Name

Last updated on: 

$name = "John S Smith";

list($fname, $lname) = split(' ', $name,2);

echo "First Name: $fname, Last Name: $lname";

Works with or without middle name.

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Comments

  1. Orves
    Permalink to comment# 
    $name = "John S. Doe";
list($fname, $lname) = explode(' ', $name,2);
echo "First Name: $fname, Last Name: $lname";

    split() function is deprecated in PHP > 5.3

    Reply ↓
  2. Mike
    Permalink to comment#

    Or maybe something more like this to literally get their first and last name, no matter how much junk they enter

    $name = "James Samuel Murphy 'I took that waaaaay too far' Adams";
list( $fname, $mname, $lname ) = explode( ' ', $name, 3 );		
if ( is_null($lname) ) //Meaning only two names were entered...
{
    $lastname = $mname;
}
else
{
    $lname = explode( ' ', $lname );
    $size = sizeof($lname);
    $lastname = $lname[$size-1];
}
echo "First Name: $fname, Last Name: $lastname";
    Reply ↓
  3. Emmanuel
    Permalink to comment#

    Perhaps a better way to go would be to strip multiple whitespace from the name before exploding it.
    Like this:

    list($fname,$lname) = explode(‘ ‘, str_replace(‘/\s+/gi’,’ ‘,$name), 2);

    Reply ↓
  4. Bretticus
    Permalink to comment#

    Note that with the limit in place, $lname always ends up with the middle names and/or initials. Also, to make this accurate with the limit param in place, you need to ensure that there are no extra spaces. preg_split with a look ahead assertion can solve these two issues with one line of code still:

    list($fname,$lname) = preg_split('/\s+(?=[^\s]+$)/', $name, 2);
    Reply ↓
  5. Immanuelprabhu
    Permalink to comment#

    Hi, help me to split my name IMMANUELPRABHU JOSHUA into First name, Middle name & Surname

    Regards
    Immanuel.J

    Reply ↓

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