$line =~ /(?=.*\bfred\s+(\w+)/ ; 

# would get "fred" and anything "-fred"
# how would I avoid that?
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What would I do in case of hyphens?

You need to figure out a boundary condition, then define it as a regex.

For instance, in the case of  (?=.*\bfred\s+(\w+)) (note the closing parenthesis, missing in your reply), the boundary condition is the  \b word boundary assertion.
It might be defined
    my $boundary = qr{ \b }xms;
and used (without the //x modifier) (untested)
    (?=.*${boundary}fred\s+(\w+))


Now just change the definition of  $boundary to fit your needs. For instance, if you wanted first names to follow anything that was not a word character and also not a hyphen, you might define (untested)
    my $boundary = qr{ (?<! [\w-]) }xms;

(?<![\w-])fred
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