Well, you have a lot of replies, and I think they all fail your spec. ... well done :).

This is probably what I would do... 

sub surname
{  # Assumes ASCII locale
   $_ = shift;

   return undef if (length($_) > 20);

   return $_ if /^([a-zA-Z]+)$/; # Surname is only one
   return $_ if /^[a-zA-Z]+ ([a-zA-Z]+)$/; # Surname only

   return undef;
}

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James Antill

In reply to Re: Stumped by regex by nevyn
in thread Stumped by regex by brickwall

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