How can I validate a full name input in a form using javascript? - Stack Overflow

I would like to write a function to validate a full name input in a form with Javascript:

a single word will be ok, a string with some blank character among name surname, middle name too, but I do not want any digit.

Any suggestion?

I would like to write a function to validate a full name input in a form with Javascript:

a single word will be ok, a string with some blank character among name surname, middle name too, but I do not want any digit.

Any suggestion?

• javascript

Share Improve this question Follow asked Feb 17, 2010 at 17:03 Paranoid AndroidParanoid Android 5,0571111 gold badges5959 silver badges7474 bronze badges

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3 Answers 3

Sorted by: Reset to default 9

There are several ways to write this, but, simply, the regular expression

/^[a-zA-Z ]+$/ 

should work for you. It will find any bination of alpha characters and spaces but no digits.

Edit to add the information from my ment, which I feel is important:

You may also wish to add the apostrophe and hyphen between the brackets, since Irish and Italian names include the former (O'Donnell, D'Ambrosio) and some folks have hyphenated last names (Claude Levi-Strauss, Ima Page-Turner, etc.).

This would result in the following expression:

/^[a-zA-Z'- ]+$/ 

Try this RegEx for maximum patibility:

Don't forget to escape the single quote-marks (') if you put this in a JavaScript string enclosed with single quotes.

^(?:((([^0-9_!¡?÷?¿/\\+=@#$%ˆ&*(){}|~<>;:[\]'’,\-.\s])){1,}(['’,\-\.]){0,1}){2,}(([^0-9_!¡?÷?¿/\\+=@#$%ˆ&*(){}|~<>;:[\]'’,\-. ]))*(([ ]+){0,1}(((([^0-9_!¡?÷?¿/\\+=@#$%ˆ&*(){}|~<>;:[\]'’,\-\.\s])){1,})(['’\-,\.]){0,1}){2,}((([^0-9_!¡?÷?¿/\\+=@#$%ˆ&*(){}|~<>;:[\]'’,\-\.\s])){2,})?)*)$

Example:

   function checkName(eid){ alert(/^(?:((([^0-9_!¡?÷?¿/\\+=@#$%ˆ&*(){}|~<>;:[\]'’,\-.\s])){1,}(['’,\-\.]){0,1}){2,}(([^0-9_!¡?÷?¿/\\+=@#$%ˆ&*(){}|~<>;:[\]'’,\-. ]))*(([ ]+){0,1}(((([^0-9_!¡?÷?¿/\\+=@#$%ˆ&*(){}|~<>;:[\]'’,\-\.\s])){1,})(['’\-,\.]){0,1}){2,}((([^0-9_!¡?÷?¿/\\+=@#$%ˆ&*(){}|~<>;:[\]'’,\-\.\s])){2,})?)*)$/.test(document.getElementById(eid).value)? 'Congratulations! You entered a valid name.' : 'Sorry, You entered an invalid name. Please try again.');};

*
	{
		color:#535353;
		font-family:Arial, Helvetica, Sans-Serif;
	}
input:valid
	{
		background-color: #DEFFDF;
	}

input:invalid
	{
		background-color: #C7D7ED;
	}

<form action="#" method="post" onsubmit="checkName('full_name');return false;">

<label for ="full_name">Your Name: </label>
<input type="text" name="full_name" id="full_name" maxlength="85" pattern="^(?:((([^0-9_!¡?÷?¿/\\+=@#$%ˆ&*(){}|~<>;:[\]'’,\-.\s])){1,}(['’,\-\.]){0,1}){2,}(([^0-9_!¡?÷?¿/\\+=@#$%ˆ&*(){}|~<>;:[\]'’,\-. ]))*(([ ]+){0,1}(((([^0-9_!¡?÷?¿/\\+=@#$%ˆ&*(){}|~<>;:[\]'’,\-\.\s])){1,})(['’\-,\.]){0,1}){2,}((([^0-9_!¡?÷?¿/\\+=@#$%ˆ&*(){}|~<>;:[\]'’,\-\.\s])){2,})?)*)$" title="Please enter your FULL name." style='width:200px;height:auto;' required>
<br><br>
<button type="submit">Submit</button>
&nbsp;&nbsp;
<button type="reset">Reset</button>
</form>

I would suggest not putting so much effort in validating data via JS. If a user has JS disabled, you will end up with some data you don't want on database.

Validate it via the server side.

Now, regards your question, I would try with regular expressions.