Separate First and Last Name

Home Code Snippets PHP Separate First and Last Name

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14 Comments

Published

Aug 11, 2009

$name = "John S Smith";

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

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

Works with or without middle name.

Comments

Orves

Permalink to comment# September 3, 2009
```
$name = "John S. Doe";
list($fname, $lname) = explode(' ', $name,2);
echo "First Name: $fname, Last Name: $lname";
```
split() function is deprecated in PHP > 5.3
Reply
- Yoosuf
  
  Permalink to comment# October 18, 2011
  
  true and agree with you
  
  @Chriss, better to update it
- hema
  
  Permalink to comment# February 25, 2013
  
  thanks
- Laxmikant Bhumkar
  
  Permalink to comment# September 2, 2019
  
  Thanks Orves for this suggestion.

Mike

# October 2, 2009

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";

Emmanuel

Permalink to comment# September 25, 2010

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
Bretticus

Permalink to comment# June 9, 2011
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
Immanuelprabhu

Permalink to comment# July 24, 2012

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

Regards
Immanuel.J

Reply
ubaid

Permalink to comment# June 21, 2013

Now time is for using explode() function :).

Reply

Preet

# October 29, 2014

Easy just do this:


$msgString = "Manpreet Singh Marwaha";

$result = explode(" ",$msgString);

echo $result[0]; //Manpreet
echo $result[1]; //Singh
echo $result[2]; //Marwaha

easy!!!

Eyosiyas

Permalink to comment# May 29, 2015

To split the whol full name into first name, middle name and last name.
$name = “Mike Mad Smith”;

list($fname,$mname, $lname) = split(‘ ‘, $name,3);

echo “First Name: $fname, Middle Name: $mname, Last Name: $lname”;

Reply
Victor

Permalink to comment# June 1, 2015

$name = explode(“ ”, “Mike Mad Smith”);

$fname = $name[0]
$lname = end($name);

echo “First Name: $fname, Last Name: $lname”;

Reply
Grant

Permalink to comment# November 2, 2015
What if it’s…
```
$name = 'Cal Ripkin, Jr.';
```
All these methods will have 'Jr.' as the last name because they assume the last index is the last name, no?
Reply
Revathi V T

Permalink to comment# May 1, 2016

Hi
I want to Split the Name ADHITHI C ANEESH as First name and sur name…please help me

Reply

Need some front-end development training?

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