#!/usr/bin/perl
use strict;
use warnings;
use Data::Dumper;

my %hash;
my $re = "iowq john stepy andy anne alic bert stepy anne bert andy step alic andy";
my @names = split(/\s+/, $re);
map($hash{$_}++, @names);
# $hash{$_}++ foreach @names; # alternative instead of map
print Dumper \%hash;

__END__

$ perl test.pl
$VAR1 = {
          'bert' => 2,
          'anne' => 2,
          'alic' => 2,
          'john' => 1,
          'andy' => 3,
          'step' => 1,
          'iowq' => 1,
          'stepy' => 2
        };