Re^3: Parsing out first names

[Hofmator]

So do what grep already hinted at, split and keep only the parts you want:

foreach ( @names ) {
  my @name_parts = split;
  pop @name_parts if $name_parts[-1] =~ /^[a-zA-Z]\.?$/; # throw last 
+name away
  my $f_name = join ' ', @name_parts;
  print "$f_name\n";
}

Updated code to reflect Not_a_Number's correction, thanks!

[Not_a_Number]

pop @name_parts; # throw last name away

Look at the OP's list of names again: some of them are only first names. This code throws "Kurt" away completely, as well as "Jo" in the second "Mary Jo".

Update: That line can be replaced by:

pop @name_parts if $name_parts[-1] =~ /^[a-zA-Z]\.?$/;

[driver8]

That works, but now you just have an obfuscated version of

foreach my $name ( @names ) {

  $name =~ s/ [a-zA-Z]\.?$//;
  print "$name \n";

}