Simple way to parse a person's name into its component parts? [closed]

Answer 1

I appreciate that this is hard to do right - but if you provide the user a way to edit the results (say, a pop-up window to edit the name if it didn't guess right) and still guess "right" for most cases... of course it's the guessing that's tough.

It's easy to say "don't do it" when looking at the problem theoretically, but sometimes circumstances dictate otherwise. Having fields for all the parts of a name (title, first, middle, last, suffix, just to name a few) can take up a lot of screen real estate - and combined with the problem of the address (a topic for another day) can really clutter up what should be a clean, simple UI.

I guess the answer should be "don't do it unless you absolutely have to, and if you do, keep it simple (some methods for this have been posted here) and provide the user the means to edit the results if needed."

Answer 2

If you must do this parsing, I'm sure you'll get lots of good suggestions here.

My suggestion is - don't do this parsing.

Instead, create your input fields so that the information is already separated out. Have separate fields for title, first name, middle initial, last name, suffix, etc.

Answer 3

I agree, there's no simple solution for this. But I found an awful approach in a Microsoft KB article for VB 5.0 that is an actual implementation to much of the discussion talked about here: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/168799

Something like this could be used in a pinch.

Answer 4

I already do this server-side on page load. Wrote a Coldfusion CFC that gets two params passed to it - actual user data(first name, middle, last name) and data type(first,middle,last). Then routine checks for hyphens, apostrophes, spaces and formats accordingly. ex. MacDonald, McMurray, O'Neill, Rodham-Clinton, Eric von Dutch, G. W. Bush, Jack Burton Jr., Dr. Paul Okin, Chris di Santos. For case where users only have one name, only the first name field is required, middle and last names are optional.

All info is stored lowercase - except Prefix, Suffix and Custom. This formatting is done on page render, not during store to db. Though there is validation filtering when user inputs data. Sorry, cannot post code. Started out using Regex but became too confusing and unreliable for all scenarios. Used standard logic blocks(if/else, switch/case), easier to read and debug. MAKE EVERY INPUT/DB FIELD SEPARATE! Yes, this will take some coding, but after you are finished it should account for 99% of combinations. Only based on English names so far, no internationalization, that's another ball of wax.

Here's some things to consider:

• Hypens (ex. Rodham-Clinton, could be in first, middle or last)
• Apostrophes (ex. O'Neill, could be in first, middle or last)
• Spaces
• Mc and Mac (ex. McDonald, MacMurray, could be in first, middle or
  last)
• First names: multiple first names (ex. Joe Bob Briggs)
• Last names: de,di,et,der,den,van,von,af should be lowercase (ex Eric von Dander, Mary di Carlo)
• Prefix: Dr., Prof., etc
• Suffix: Jr., Sr., Esq., II, III, etc

When user enters info, field schema in db is like so:

• Prefix/Title (Dr., etc using a dropdown)
• Prefix/Title Custom (user can enter custom, ex. Capt. using a text field)
• First Name
• Middle
• Last Name
• Suffix (Jr., III, Prof., Ret., etc using a dropdown)
• Suffix Custom (user can enter custom, ex. CPA)

Here's the one Regex I do use to make first letter of each name uppercase. I run this first, then following routines format according to rules(it's in Coldfusion format but you get the idea):

<cfset var nameString = REReplace(LCase(nameString), "(^[[:alpha:]]|[[:blank:]][[:alpha:]])", "\U\1\E", "ALL")>

You could also do this client-side using JavaScript and CSS - might even be easier - but I prefer to do server-side since I need the variables set before page loads client-side.

Answer 5

There is no 100% way to do this.

You can split on spaces, and try to understand the name all you want, but when it comes down to it, you will get it wrong sometimes. If that is good enough, go for any of the answers here that give you ways to split.

But some people will have a name like "John Wayne Olson", where "John Wayne" is the first name, and someone else will have a name like "John Wayne Olson" where "Wayne" is their middle name. There is nothing present in that name that will tell you which way to interpret it.

That's just the way it is. It's an analogue world.

My rules are pretty simple.

Take the last part --> Last Name
If there are multiple parts left, take the last part --> Middle name
What is left --> First name

But don't assume this will be 100% accurate, nor will any other hardcoded solution. You will need to have the ability to let the user edit this him/her-self.

Answer 6

You probably don't need to do anything fancy really. Something like this should work.

    Name = Name.Trim();

    arrNames = Name.Split(' ');

    if (arrNames.Length > 0) {
        GivenName = arrNames[0];
    }
    if (arrNames.Length > 1) {
        FamilyName = arrNames[arrNames.Length - 1];
    }
    if (arrNames.Length > 2) {
        MiddleName = string.Join(" ", arrNames, 1, arrNames.Length - 2);
    }

You may also want to check for titles first.