How do I parse the people's first and last name in Python?

Question

So basically I need to parse a name and find the following info:

First Name
First Initial (if employee has initials for a first name like D.J., use both initials)
Last Name (include if employee has a suffix such as Jr. or III.)

So here's the interface I'm working with:

Input:

names = ["D.J. Richies III", "John Doe", "A.J. Hardie Jr."]
for name in names:
   print parse_name(name)

Expected Output:

{'FirstName': 'D.J.', 'FirstInitial': 'D.J.', 'LastName': 'Richies III' }
{'FirstName': 'John', 'FirstInitial': 'J.', 'LastName': 'Doe' }
{'FirstName': 'A.J.', 'FirstInitial': 'A.J.', 'LastName': 'Hardie Jr.' }

Not really good at Regex, and actually that's probably overkill for this. I'm just guessing:

if name[1] == ".":  # we have a name like D.J.?

I18n: Do you consider systems, where the family name comes first and the given name is second? — Boldewyn, Nov 12 '09 at 07:33
The underlying problem (regardless of implementation language) is not as obviously solveable as it may seem - see this duplicate: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/103422/simple-way-to-parse-a-persons-name-into-its-component-parts — Daniel Earwicker, Nov 12 '09 at 07:34
Nah, I don't believe that is in the context of my requirements. That's an interesting point though, for a more complex name parser. — y2k, Nov 12 '09 at 07:34
The most complex the names will be are shown in my A.J. Hardie Jr. and D.J. Richies III examples. — y2k, Nov 12 '09 at 07:36

score 7 · Answer 1 · answered Feb 04 '13 at 06:00

7

I found this library quite useful for parsing names. https://code.google.com/p/python-nameparser/

It can also deal with names that are formatted Lastname, Firstname.

answered Feb 04 '13 at 06:00

Hamish Currie

461
4
11

score 4 · Answer 2 · answered Nov 12 '09 at 07:45

There is no general solution and solution will depend on the constraints you put. For the specs you have given here is a simple solution which gives exactly what you want

def parse_name(name):
   fl = name.split()
   first_name = fl[0]
   last_name = ' '.join(fl[1:])
   if "." in first_name:
      first_initial = first_name
   else:
      first_initial = first_name[0]+"."

   return {'FirstName':first_name, 'FirstInitial':first_initial, 'LastName':last_name}

names = ["D.J. Richies III", "John Doe", "A.J. Hardie Jr."]
for name in names:
   print parse_name(name)

output:

{'LastName': 'Richies III', 'FirstInitial': 'D.J.', 'FirstName': 'D.J.'}
{'LastName': 'Doe', 'FirstInitial': 'J.', 'FirstName': 'John'}
{'LastName': 'Hardie Jr.', 'FirstInitial': 'A.J.', 'FirstName': 'A.J.'}

score 3 · Accepted Answer · answered Nov 12 '09 at 07:44

Well, for your simple example names, you can do something like this.

# This separates the first and last names
name = name.partition(" ")
firstName = name[0]
# now figure out the first initial
# we're assuming that if it has a dot it's an initialized name,
# but this may not hold in general
if "." in firstName:
    firstInitial = firstName
else:
    firstInitial = firstName[0] + "."
lastName = name[2]
return {"FirstName":firstName, "FirstInitial":firstInitial, "LastName": lastName}

I haven't tested it, but a function like that should do the job on the input example you provided.

score 3 · Answer 4 · answered Nov 12 '09 at 07:50

3

This is basically the same solution as the one Anurag Uniyal provided, only a little more compact:

import re

def parse_name(name):
    first_name, last_name = name.split(' ', 1)
    first_initial = re.search("^[A-Z.]+", first_name).group()
    if not first_initial.endswith("."):
        first_initial += "."
    return {"FirstName": first_name,
            "FirstInitial": first_initial,
            "LastName": last_name}

answered Nov 12 '09 at 07:50

Pär Wieslander

27,610
7
49
53

Interesting use of regex. This will probably handle and adapt to more cases tan Anurag's would. Thanks for the solution. – y2k Nov 12 '09 at 07:55

How do I parse the people's first and last name in Python?

4 Answers4