$re = '/\b[johny]+\b\s+\b[aplsed]+\b/si';
$str = 'The myth of Johnny Appleseed states that he ate many apple seeds
#misspellings
Johnny Applseed
Johny Appleseed
Johnny Applesee
#Letter case
johnny appleseed
JOHNNY APPLESEED
JoHny ApPleseED';
preg_match_all($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