I will timidly confess to a preference for the regex solution when comparing to $_, such as:

foreach (@names) {
  next if /^buckaduck$/i;
  ...
}
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Because I have a real distaste for writing $_ explicitly whenever it's not absolutely necessary. This is partly for readability -- some of the Perl novices at my work are still afraid of $_ ... (And yet they don't mind the implicit use of $_. Strange.) And it's also just plain easier to type than the more proper alternative:

foreach (@names) {
  next if ( lc($_) eq lc('buckaduck') );
  ...
}
[download]

buckaduck