$re = '/"(\s+)?([a-z\s]+?)(\s+)?"/m';
$str = '"name","john","name of john"
"name"," john","name of john"
" name "," john","name of john "
" name "," john"," name of john "';
$subst = "$2";
$result = preg_replace($re, $subst, $str);
echo "The result of the substitution is ".$result;
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