JavaScript regex valid name

Question

I want to make a JavaScript regular expression that checks for valid names.

minimum 2 chars (space can't count)
space en some special chars allowed (éàëä...)

I know how to write some seperatly but not combined.

If I use /^([A-Za-z éàë]{2,40})$/, the user could input 2 spaces as a name

If I use /^([A-Za-z]{2,40}[ éàë]{0,40})$/, the user must use 2 letters first and after using space or special char, can't use letters again.

Searched around a bit, but hard to formulate search string for my problem. Any ideas?

Sooo, what happens to people that have chars that you don't allow in their name?? — loganfsmyth
– loganfsmyth, Commented Feb 25, 2012 at 15:34

Thomas · Accepted Answer · 2012-02-25 16:12:26Z

14

Please, please pretty please, don't do this. You will only end up upsetting people by telling them their name is not valid. Several examples of surnames that would be rejected by your scheme: O'Neill, Sørensen, Юдович, 李. Trying to cover all these cases and more is doomed to failure.

Just do something like this:

strip leading and trailing blanks
collapse consecutive blanks into one space
check if the result is not empty

In JavaScript, that would look like:

name = name.replace(/^\s+/, "").replace(/\s+$/, "").replace(/\s+/, " ");
if (name == "") {
  // show error
} else {
  // valid: maybe put trimmed name back into form
}

answered Feb 25, 2012 at 16:12

Thomas

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Comments

Santiago G. Marín · Accepted Answer · 2015-12-15 14:54:17Z

4

Most solutions don't consider the many different names there might be. There can be names with only two character like Al or Bo or someone that writes his name like F. Middlename Lastname.

This RegExp will validate most names but you can optimize it to whatever you want:

/^[a-z\u00C0-\u02AB'´`]+\.?\s([a-z\u00C0-\u02AB'´`]+\.?\s?)+$/i

This will allow:

Li Huang Wu
Cevahir Özgür
Yiğit Aydın
Finlay Þunor Boivin
Josué Mikko Norris
Tatiana Zlata Zdravkov
Ariadna Eliisabet O'Taidhg
sergej lisette rijnders
BRIANA NORMINA HAUPT
BihOtZ AmON PavLOv
Eoghan Murdo Stanek
Filimena J. Van Der Veen
D. Blair Wallace

But will not allow:

Shirley24
66Bryant Hunt88
http://stackoverflow.com
laoise_ibtihaj
[email protected]
Cy4n 4ur0r4 Blyth3 3ll1
Justisne
Danny

If the name needs to be capitalized, uppercase, lowercase, trimmed or single spaced, that's a task a formatter should do, not the user.

edited Dec 15, 2015 at 14:54

answered Dec 15, 2015 at 14:34

Santiago G. Marín

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2 Comments

Guilherme de Freitas Over a year ago

I believe this is the best choice for those who want to allow only latin alphabetic characters. I only added dash to Santiago's regex: /^[a-z\u00C0-\u02AB'´`-]+\.?\s([a-z\u00C0-\u02AB'´`-]+\.?\s?)+$/i. In addition, it's possible to use the same approach regarding unicode characters to add other possibilities. By the way, I used it in javascript.

Santiago G. Marín Over a year ago

Updated version (a bit more flexible): gist.github.com/stgogm/32b54c4a5d00e73dedb2

skwidbreth · Accepted Answer · 2017-04-25 02:47:54Z

2

I would like to propose a RegEx that would match all latin based languages with their special characters:

/\A([ áàíóúéëöüñÄĞİŞȘØøğışÐÝÞðýþA-Za-z-']*)\z/

P.S. I've included all characters I could find, but please feel free to edit the answer in case I've missed any.

edited Apr 25, 2017 at 2:47

skwidbreth

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answered Oct 21, 2013 at 7:58

Itay Grudev

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Comments

Karl Barker · Accepted Answer · 2012-02-25 15:36:00Z

1

Why not

var reg= /^([A-Za-z]{2}[ éàëA-Za-z]*)$/;

2 letters, then as many spaces, letters or special characters as you want.

I wouldn't allow spaces in usernames though - it's begging for trouble when you have usernames like

ab         ba

who's going to remember how many spaces they used?

answered Feb 25, 2012 at 15:36

Karl Barker

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1 Comment

user1232673 Over a year ago

its actually to fill in a form, and used to check for lastname. Since there are many last names with spaces in them i wanted to include them. But as you point out it is possible with your script to use many spaces in a row. Is there an easy solution to allow spaces but only one at a time, so you can have a lastname like: van den borre (and still refuse names like van den borre) ? Thx for the answers allready :)

Dagg Nabbit · Accepted Answer · 2012-02-25 15:37:09Z

1

You could do this:

/^([A-Za-zéàë]{2,40} ?)+$/

2-40 characters, and then optionally a space, repeated at least once. This will allow a space at the end, but you could trim it off separately.

answered Feb 25, 2012 at 15:37

Dagg Nabbit

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3 Comments

loganfsmyth Over a year ago

If you want to get rid of the space in the regex itself, use a non-capturing group. /^(?:([A-Za-zéàë]{2,40}) ?)+$/

Dagg Nabbit Over a year ago

@loganfsmyth I mean that applying the regex (with, say, test) to a string like "bob barker " would result in true, where you might want it to be false because of the space on the end.

loganfsmyth Over a year ago

Oh yeah, I must have misunderstood :P Oops

patocardo · Accepted Answer · 2012-02-25 23:54:06Z

After 'trim' the input value, The following will math your request only for Latin surnames.

rn = new RegExp("([\w\u00C0-\u02AB']+ ?)+","gi");
m = ln.match(rn);
valid = (m && m.length)? true: false;

Note that I am using '+', instead of '{2,}', that is because some surnames uses just one letter in a separated word like "Ortega y Gasset"

You can see I am not using RegExp.test, this is because that method don't work properly (I don't know why, but it has a high fail-rate, you may see it here:.

In my country, people from non-latin-language countries usually do some translation of their names so the previous RegExp would be enough. However, if you attempt to match any surname in the world, you may add more range of \u#### characters, avoiding to include symbols, numbers or other type. Or perhaps the xregexp library may help you.

And, please, do not forget to test the input in server side, and escaping it before using it in the sql sentences (if you have them)

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