Regular Expression in C# for Last Name that includes internal space

Question

I'd like a Regular Expression for C# that matches "Johnson", "Del Sol", or "Del La Range"; in other words, it should match words with spaces in the middle but no space at the start or at the end.

Answer 1

^\p{L}+(\s+\p{L}+)*$

This regex has the following features:

• Will match a one letter last name (e.g. Malcolm X's last name)
• Will not match last names containing numbers (like anything with a \w or a [^ ] will)
• Matches unicode letters

But what about last names like "O'Connor" or hyphenated last names ... hmm ...