Name & Parameters: [color:red][big] GetFirstName ( FullName ) [/big]

Description: Return a person's first name. Skips over titles, will also return a hyphenated first name, or a second name where the person uses his first name initial.

Sample Input:

1) Mrs. Ann-Marie Smith

2) Dr. J. Harry Morton

3) John Doe

Results:

1) Ann-Marie

2) Harry

3) John

Recursive: no

Formula:

/* CF: Returns A Contact's First Name from a Full Name

    CF:  GetFirstName

             FullName

*/



Let ( [

         name= Substitute ( FullName; "-" ; "00" ); // Needed because FM treats lots of characters as separators 

         fw= LeftWords ( name ; 1 );

         title=  Case( fw= "Mr" or fw= "Mrs" or fw= "Ms" or fw= "Miss" or fw= "Prof" or fw= "Dr"; fw; "" ); // Trap title if it exists

         start= Case( WordCount(title) ≤ 0; 1; 2); // Skip title if necessary 

         start= Case( Length( MiddleWords ( name ; start ; 1 )) ≤ 1; start+1; start) // Move over 1 if initial: returns 'Thomas' if name is 'J. Thomas Smith'

         ];



Substitute( MiddleWords ( name ; start ; 1 ); "00"; "-") // Replace with dash



) 

Required Functions:

Author(s): Steveinvegas

Date: 06/03/06

Credits:

Disclaimer:

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Did you solve the problem with two first names?

I was only interested in handling a hypenated first name, which this does.

Steve

I simply use four fields for a name - First Title, Second First, Third Middle, Fourth Last.

It reduces confusion, though this function does look like it might have some use to me anyway in terms of reparsing into the database.

Cheers,

~Genx

Yeh, but...it takes more screen real estate and users are more likely to make mistakes by typing multiple words into 1 field. I usually (against convention) keep the full name in one field. I had a script to split things out when I needed to, but these functions make things more convenient.

Steve

Each to his own I suppose.