Hello i need a regex for name validation in java. Both first and last names are in one string. both names need to be capitalized and allow hyphenated names.
valid: John Smith, John-Doe Smith, John Smith-Doe
invalid: john smith, John-doe Smith, John Smith-doe
so far i have tried this:
[A-Z][a-z]{0,20}\s[A-Z][-a-zA-Z]{0,40}
but can't get it to catch if the name after the dash starts with lowercase
a slightly shorter regex would be
String regex = "[A-Z][a-z]{0,20}(?:[-\\h][A-Z][a-z]{0,40}){1,2}";
… with this change, Irish names (eg. Peter O’Toole) are also treated correctly
String regex = "[A-Z][a-z]{0,20}(?:[-\\h][A-Z](?:'[A-Z])?[a-z]{0,40}){1,2}";
You could use repeated groups that start with an uppercase A-Z, and match a whitespace or - in between.
^[A-Z][a-z]{0,20}(?:[\h-][A-Z][a-z]{0,40})*(?:,\h*[A-Z][a-z]{0,20}(?:[\h-][A-Z][a-z]{0,40})*)*$
In Java
String regex = "^[A-Z][a-z]{0,20}(?:[\\h-][A-Z][a-z]{0,40})*(?:,\\h*[A-Z][a-z]{0,20}(?:[\\h-][A-Z][a-z]{0,40})*)*$";