Normalize Name

An easy Python interview practice problem on DataDriven. Write the Python and run it against test cases, with instant feedback.

Domain
Python
Difficulty
easy
Seniority
L3

Problem

Names coming off a signup form carry stray whitespace and whatever casing the user typed. Return each name as a clean display name, every word capitalized with the rest of it lowercased.

Names are messy. Standardize them.

Example 1

Input:

name = "ada lovelace"

Output:

"Ada Lovelace"

Example 2

Input:

name = "  grace   HOPPER "

Output:

"Grace Hopper"

Worked solution and explanation

What this really tests

This is whitespace normalization dressed up as a casing problem. Everyone sees the capitalization; the part that separates candidates is the spacing. Reach for name.title() and the casing comes out right, but every run of spaces and every leading or trailing blank survives untouched, so ' grace HOPPER ' comes back as ' Grace Hopper ' and the cleanup the form data needed never happens.

Break down the requirements

Step 1: Split the name into words

Call name.split() with no argument. That form splits on any whitespace run (spaces, tabs, newlines) and drops empty pieces, so the stray padding disappears before you touch a single letter.

Step 2: Capitalize the first letter of each word and lowercase the rest

Uppercase the first character and lowercase everything after it. The second half is the one people skip: without it 'HOPPER' keeps shouting and 'heLLO' stays mangled. Because the split never yields an empty word, word[0] is always safe.

Step 3: Rejoin with spaces

Join the cleaned words with exactly one space. Because the split already threw the original spacing away, the output spacing is now yours to decide, not inherited from the input.

The solution

Split, recase each word, rejoin
def normalize_name(name):
    words = name.split()
    result_words = []
    for word in words:
        titled = word[0].upper() + word[1:].lower()
        result_words.append(titled)
    result = ' '.join(result_words)
    return result

Common follow-up questions