Regular expression for first and last name

regex validation
Hellnar picture Hellnar · Mar 5, 2010 · Viewed 339.3k times · Source

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, and has a minimum of three characters, but a maximum at top 30 characters. An empty string shouldn't be validated (e.g. Jason, jason, jason smith, jason smith, JASON, Jason smith, jason Smith, and jason SMITH).

For the last name, it should be a single word, only letters, with at least three characters, but at most 30 characters. Empty strings shouldn't be validated (e.g. lazslo, Lazslo, and LAZSLO).

Answer

maček picture maček · Mar 5, 2010

Don't forget about names like:

  • Mathias d'Arras
  • Martin Luther King, Jr.
  • Hector Sausage-Hausen

This should do the trick for most things:

/^[a-z ,.'-]+$/i

OR Support international names with super sweet unicode:

/^[a-zA-ZàáâäãåąčćęèéêëėįìíîïłńòóôöõøùúûüųūÿýżźñçčšžÀÁÂÄÃÅĄĆČĖĘÈÉÊËÌÍÎÏĮŁŃÒÓÔÖÕØÙÚÛÜŲŪŸÝŻŹÑßÇŒÆČŠŽ∂ð ,.'-]+$/u

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