NameCase - Perl module to fix the case of people's names.

    # Working with scalars; complementing lc and uc.

    use Lingua::EN::NameCase qw( nc ) ;

    $FixedCasedName  = nc( $OriginalName ) ;

    $FixedCasedName  = nc( \$OriginalName ) ;

    # Working with arrays or array references.

    use Lingua::EN::NameCase 'NameCase' ;

    $FixedCasedName  = NameCase( $OriginalName ) ;
    @FixedCasedNames = NameCase( @OriginalNames ) ;

    $FixedCasedName  = NameCase( \$OriginalName ) ;
    @FixedCasedNames = NameCase( \@OriginalNames ) ;

    NameCase( \@OriginalNames ) ; # In-place.

    # NameCase will not change a scalar in-place, i.e.
    NameCase( \$OriginalName ) ; # WRONG: null operation.

    $Lingua::EN::NameCase::SPANISH = 1;
    # Now 'El' => 'El' instead of (default) Greek 'El' => 'el'.
    # Now 'La' => 'La' instead of (default) French 'La' => 'la'.

Forenames and surnames are often stored either wholly in UPPERCASE or wholly in lowercase. This module allows you to convert names into the correct case where possible.

Although forenames and surnames are normally stored separately if they do appear in a single string, whitespace separated, NameCase and nc deal correctly with them.

NameCase currently correctly name cases names which include any of the following: Mc, Mac, al, el, ap, da, de, delle, della, di, du, del, der, la, le, lo, van and von.

It correctly deals with names which contain apostrophies and hyphens too.

    Original            Name Case
    --------            ---------
    KEITH               Keith
    LEIGH-WILLIAMS      Leigh-Williams
    MCCARTHY            McCarthy
    O'CALLAGHAN         O'Callaghan
    ST. JOHN            St. John

plus son (daughter) of etc. in various languages, e.g.:

    VON STREIT          von Streit
    VAN DYKE            van Dyke
    AP LLWYD DAFYDD     ap Llwyd Dafydd
etc.

plus names with roman numerals (up to 89, LXXXIX), e.g.:

    henry viii          Henry VIII
    louis xiv           Louis XIV

The module covers the rules that I know of. There are probably a lot more rules, exceptions etc. for Western-style languages which could be incorporated.

There are probably lots of exceptions and problems - but as a general data 'cleaner' it may be all you need.

Use Kim Ryan's NameParse.pm for any really sophisticated name parsing.

1998/04/20 First release.

1998/06/25 First public release.

1999/01/18 Second public release.

1999/02/08 Added Mac with Mack as an exception, thanks to Kim Ryan for this.

1999/05/05 Copied Kim Ryan's Mc/Mac solution from his NameParse.pm and replaced my Mc/Mac solution with his.

1999/05/08 nc can now use CW$_ as its default argument e.g. $ans = nc ; and nc ;, both of which set CW$_, with the first one setting CW$ans also.

1999/07/30 Modified for CPAN and automatic testing. Stopped using CW$_ as the default argument.

1999/08/08 Changed licence to LGPL.

1999/09/07 Minor change to packaging for CPAN.

1999/09/09 Renamed package Lingua::EN::NameCase.pm as per John Porter's (CPAN) suggestion.

1999/11/13 Added code for names with roman numerals, thanks to David Lynn Rice for this suggestion. (If you need to go beyond LXXXIX let me know.)

2000/11/22 Added use locale at the suggestion of Eric Kolve. It should have been there in the first place.

2002/04/25 Al, Ben and Van are preserved if single names and namecased otherwise, e.g. 'Al' => 'Al', 'Al Fahd' => 'al Fahd'. Added CW$SPANISH_EL variable. All thanks to a suggestion by Aaron Patterson. 2002/04/26 Changed CW$SPANISH_EL to CW$SPANISH and now 'La' => 'la' unless CW$SPANISH is set in which case 'La' => 'La'. Again thanks to Aaron Patterson.

Mark Summerfield. I can be contacted as <summer@perlpress.com> - please include the word 'namecase' in the subject line.

Thanks to Kim Ryan <kimaryan@ozemail.com.au> for his Mc/Mac solution.

Copyright (c) Mark Summerfield 1998-2002. All Rights Reserved.

This module may be used/distributed/modified under the LGPL.