Best way to split a first and last name in PHP

Great library here that so far has parsed names flawlessly: https://github.com/joshfraser/PHP-Name-Parser

The accepted answer doesn't work for languages other than english, or names such as "Oscar de la Hoya".

Here's something I did that I think is utf-8 safe and works for all of those cases, building on the accepted answer's assumption that a prefix and suffix will have a period:

/**
 * splits single name string into salutation, first, last, suffix
 * 
 * @param string $name
 * @return array
 */
public static function doSplitName($name)
{
    $results = array();

    $r = explode(' ', $name);
    $size = count($r);

    //check first for period, assume salutation if so
    if (mb_strpos($r[0], '.') === false)
    {
        $results['salutation'] = '';
        $results['first'] = $r[0];
    }
    else
    {
        $results['salutation'] = $r[0];
        $results['first'] = $r[1];
    }

    //check last for period, assume suffix if so
    if (mb_strpos($r[$size - 1], '.') === false)
    {
        $results['suffix'] = '';
    }
    else
    {
        $results['suffix'] = $r[$size - 1];
    }

    //combine remains into last
    $start = ($results['salutation']) ? 2 : 1;
    $end = ($results['suffix']) ? $size - 2 : $size - 1;

    $last = '';
    for ($i = $start; $i <= $end; $i++)
    {
        $last .= ' '.$r[$i];
    }
    $results['last'] = trim($last);

    return $results;
}

Here's the phpunit test:

public function testDoSplitName()
{
    $array = array(
        'FirstName LastName',
        'Mr. First Last',
        'First Last Jr.',
        'Shaqueal O\'neal',
        'D’angelo Hall',
        'Václav Havel',
        'Oscar De La Hoya',
        'АБВГҐД ЂЃЕЀЁЄЖЗ', //cyrillic
        'דִּיש מַחֲזֹור', //yiddish
    );

    $assertions = array(
            array(
                    'salutation' => '',
                    'first' => 'FirstName',
                    'last' => 'LastName',
                    'suffix' => ''
                ),
            array(
                    'salutation' => 'Mr.',
                    'first' => 'First',
                    'last' => 'Last',
                    'suffix' => ''
                ),
            array(
                    'salutation' => '',
                    'first' => 'First',
                    'last' => 'Last',
                    'suffix' => 'Jr.'
                ),
            array(
                    'salutation' => '',
                    'first' => 'Shaqueal',
                    'last' => 'O\'neal',
                    'suffix' => ''
                ),
            array(
                    'salutation' => '',
                    'first' => 'D’angelo',
                    'last' => 'Hall',
                    'suffix' => ''
                ),
            array(
                    'salutation' => '',
                    'first' => 'Václav',
                    'last' => 'Havel',
                    'suffix' => ''
                ),
            array(
                    'salutation' => '',
                    'first' => 'Oscar',
                    'last' => 'De La Hoya',
                    'suffix' => ''
                ),
            array(
                    'salutation' => '',
                    'first' => 'АБВГҐД',
                    'last' => 'ЂЃЕЀЁЄЖЗ',
                    'suffix' => ''
                ),
            array(
                    'salutation' => '',
                    'first' => 'דִּיש',
                    'last' => 'מַחֲזֹור',
                    'suffix' => ''
                ),
        );

    foreach ($array as $key => $name)
    {
        $result = Customer::doSplitName($name);

        $this->assertEquals($assertions[$key], $result);
    }
}

A regex is the best way to handle something like this. Try this piece - it pulls out the prefix, first name, last name and suffix:

$array = array(
    'FirstName LastName',
    'Mr. First Last',
    'First Last Jr.',
    'Shaqueal O’neal',
    'D’angelo Hall',
);

foreach ($array as $name)
{
    $results = array();
    echo $name;
    preg_match('#^(\w+\.)?\s*([\'\’\w]+)\s+([\'\’\w]+)\s*(\w+\.?)?$#', $name, $results);
print_r($results);
}

The result comes out like this:

FirstName LastName
Array
(
    [0] => FirstName LastName
    [1] => 
    [2] => FirstName
    [3] => LastName
)
Mr. First Last
Array
(
    [0] => Mr. First Last
    [1] => Mr.
    [2] => First
    [3] => Last
)
First Last Jr.
Array
(
    [0] => First Last Jr.
    [1] => 
    [2] => First
    [3] => Last
    [4] => Jr.
)
shaqueal o’neal
Array
(
    [0] => shaqueal o’neal
    [1] => 
    [2] => shaqueal
    [3] => o’neal
)
d’angelo hall
Array
(
    [0] => d’angelo hall
    [1] => 
    [2] => d’angelo
    [3] => hall
)

etc…

so in the array $array[0] contains the entire string. $array[2] is always first name and $array[3] is always last name. $array[1] is prefix and $array[4] (not always set) is suffix. I also added code to handle both ' and ’ for names like Shaqueal O’neal and D’angelo Hall.

You won't find a safe way to solve this problem, not even a human can always tell which parts belong to the firstname and which belong to the lastname, especially when one of them contains several words like: Andrea Frank Gutenberg. The middle part Frank can be a second firstname or the lastname with a maiden name Gutenberg.

The best you can do is, to provide different input fields for firstname and lastname, and safe them separated in the database, you can avoid a lot of problems this way.