$re = '/^\h*<td\s*>([^<\r\n]+)<\/td\s*>.*<td\s*>([^<\r\n]+)<\/td\s*>/m';
$str = '<tr >
<th style="text-align:right; background-color:white; color:black" scope="col">Rank</th>
<th style="text-align:right; background-color:white; color:black" scope="col" abbr="male name">Name</th>
<th style="text-align:right; background-color:white; color:black" scope="col" abbr="male number">Number</th>
<th style="text-align:right; background-color:white; color:black" scope="col" abbr="female name">Name</th>
<th style="text-align:right; background-color:white; color:black" abbr="female number">Number</th>
</tr>
</thead>
<tbody>
<tr ><td>1</td>
<td >Jacob</td> <td>273,844</td> <td >Emily</td> <td>223,690</td></tr>
<tr ><td>2</td>
<td >Michael</td> <td>250,554</td> <td >Madison</td> <td>193,152</td></tr>
<tr ><td>3</td>
<td >Joshua</td> <td>231,926</td> <td >Emma</td> <td>181,257</td></tr>
<tr ><td>4</td>
<td >Matthew</td> <td>221,513</td> <td >Olivia</td> <td>156,000</td></tr>
<tr ><td>5</td>';
preg_match_all($re, $str, $matches, PREG_SET_ORDER, 0);
// Print the entire match result
var_dump($matches);
Please keep in mind that these code samples are automatically generated and are not guaranteed to work. If you find any syntax errors, feel free to submit a bug report. For a full regex reference for PHP, please visit: http://php.net/manual/en/ref.pcre.php