javascript name regex

Question

I'm trying to write a RegEx for names. Names can optionally start with a title (Dr., Mrs., etc) and otherwise contain two or three names with the middle name optionally abbreviated in the form (X.)

For instance the following names should be matched:

Dr. Jeff T. Walker
Susan B. Anthony
Mr. Michael Binghamton
Mrs. George Bush

The following should not be matched

Garfield
Dr. J
T. Pain
The United States of America
February 15 2020

Here is what I have:

^(Dr\.|Mr\.|Mrs\.)?[A-Z][a-z]+\s([A-Z][a-z]+|[A-Z]\.)\s[A-Z][a-z]+?

im not quite sure where I'm going wrong here.

what bout digits and symbols? 50 Cent and Ke$ha would be disappointed — Mike H.
– Mike H., Commented Mar 5, 2013 at 19:30
@MikeHometchko, Names are typically not allowed to have numbers and symbols — Jess
– Jess, Commented Mar 5, 2013 at 20:26

Community · Accepted Answer · 2017-05-23 10:25:10Z

3

^((Dr|Mr|Mrs)\. )?[A-Z][a-z]+( [A-Z]([a-z]+|\.))? [A-Z][a-z]+

This is what I did to fix it:

Added a space after the prefix - before, you were matching things like "Dr.James", rather than "Dr. James"
Removed question mark at the end, after the last name - when not after a parentheses, ? results in "lazy matching" - matching as few characters as possible (in this case, 1)
made the middle name optional
Removed some redundancies (such as in the prefix and middle name)
replaced \s with spaces - it's easier to read, and \s matches tabs, newlines, etc.

edited May 23, 2017 at 10:25

CommunityBot

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answered Mar 5, 2013 at 19:31

Arithmomaniac

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2 Comments

Ted Over a year ago

aha! you're a miracle worker here... been struggling with this for 30+ min. thank you for your thorough response & streamlining my existing code!

c24w Over a year ago

You may also want the $ at the end so you can't match something ridiculous like Dr. Jeff T. Walker !"£$%^&*()0987654321

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