$re = '/(<[^>]*>)/m';
$str = '< Jens > is my name. I play < Football >. I saw < Steffy > Yesterday. Yeah, We will be < Together > For sure.';
$subst = "\\b$1\\b";
$result = preg_replace($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