SMITH, JOHN H.  --becomes-->  Smith, John H.

##</code><code>##

Smith, John H. (JOHNNY) --becomes--> Smith, John H. (Johnny)

##</code><code>##

SMITH, JOHN H. (JOHNNY) *CONTRACTOR* --becomes--> Smith, John H. (Johnny) *CONTRACTOR*

##</code><code>##

#!/usr/bin/perl
                                     
use strict;
use warnings;

my @names = ("Foonman, Joseph S. (Joe)",
             "SMITH, EDWARD",
             "Perl, Paul M. *CONTRACTOR*",
             "Jones, Bobby R.",
             "Ruth, BABE B. *CONTRACTOR*",
             "CLAUSE, SANTINO (SANTA)",
             );

for my $n (@names) {
  print join(" ", map( { if (/^\*/) {
                           $_;
                         }
                         elsif (/^\(/) {
                           "\(".ucfirst(lc(substr($_,1)));
                         }
                         else {
                           ucfirst(lc($_));
                         } 
                       } 
                       split(/ /,$n)))."\n";
}

##</code><code>##

Foonman, Joseph S. (Joe)
Smith, Edward
Perl, Paul M. *CONTRACTOR*
Jones, Bobby R.
Ruth, Babe B. *CONTRACTOR*
Clause, Santino (Santa)