It's probably easily to use split since your file is nicely set up for that; Regex's aren't always the right cure for every problem.

my @names;
while (<FILE>) {
  my ( $a, $name, @rest ) = split /\|/;
  push @names, $name;
}
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Dr. Michael K. Neylon - mneylon-pm@masemware.com || "You've left the lens cap of your mind on again, Pinky" - The Brain