Trying to use regular expressions to convert names to Title Case

Question

I'm trying to change names to their proper case for most common names in North America (esp. the U.S.).
Some examples are in the comments of the included code below.
My problem is that *retName = retName.replaceAll("( [^ ])([^ ]+)", "$1".toUpperCase() + "$2");* does not work as I expect. It seems that the toUpperCase method call does not actually do anything to the identified group.
Everything else works as I expect.
I'm hoping that I do not have to iterate through each character of the string, upshifting the characters that follow spaces.
Any help from you RegEx experts will be appreciated.
{code}
* Converts names in some random case into proper Name Case. This method does not have the
* extra processing that would be necessary to convert street addresses.
* This method does not add or remove punctuation.
* Examples:
* DAN MARINO --> Dan Marino
* old macdonald --> Old Macdonald <-- Can't capitalize the 'D" because of Ernst Mach
* ROY BLOUNT, JR. --> Roy Blount, Jr.
* CAROL mosely-BrAuN --> Carol Mosely-Braun
* Tom Jones --> Tom Jones
* ST.LOUIS --> St. Louis
* ST.LOUIS, MO --> St. Louis, Mo <-- Avoid City Names plus State Codes
* This is a work in progress that will need to be updated as new exceptions are found.
public static String toNameCase(String name) {
* Basic plan:
* 1. Strategically create double spaces in front of characters to be capitalized
* 2. Capitalize characters with preceding spaces
* 3. Remove double spaces.
// Make the string all lower case
String retName = name.trim().toLowerCase();
// Collapse strings of spaces to single spaces
retName = retName.replaceAll("[ ]+", " ");
// "mc" names
retName = retName.replaceAll("( mc)", " $1");
// Ensure there is one space after periods and commas
retName = retName.replaceAll("(\\.|,)([^ ])", "$1 $2");
// Add 2 spaces after periods, commas, hyphens and apostrophes
retName = retName.replaceAll("(\\.|,|-|')", "$1 ");
// Add a double space to the front of the string
retName = " " + retName;
// Upshift each character that is preceded by a space
// For some reason this doesn't work
retName = retName.replaceAll("( [^ ])([^ ]+)", "$1".toUpperCase() + "$2");
// Remove double spaces
retName = retName.replaceAll(" ", "");
return retName;
Edited by: FuzzyBunnyFeet on Jan 17, 2011 10:56 AM
Edited by: FuzzyBunnyFeet on Jan 17, 2011 10:57 AM                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                               

Answer 1

Hopefully someone will still be able to provide a RegEx solution, but until that time here is a working method.
Also, if people have suggestions of other rules for letter capitalization in names, I am interested in those too.
* Converts names in some random case into proper Name Case.  This method does not have the
* extra processing that would be necessary to convert street addresses.
* This method does not add or remove punctuation.
* Examples:
* CAROL mosely-BrAuN --> Carol Mosely-Braun
* carol o'connor --> Carol O'Connor
* DAN MARINO --> Dan Marino
* eD mCmAHON --> Ed McMahon
* joe amcode --> Joe Amcode         <-- Embedded "mc"
* mr.t --> Mr. T                    <-- Inserted space
* OLD MACDONALD --> Old Macdonald   <-- Can't capitalize the 'D" because of Ernst Mach
* old mac donald --> Old Mac Donald
* ROY BLOUNT,JR. --> Roy Blount, Jr.
* ST.LOUIS --> St. Louis
* ST.LOUIS,MO --> St. Louis, Mo     <-- Avoid City Names plus State Codes
* Tom Jones --> Tom Jones
* This is a work in progress that will need to be updated as new exceptions are found.
public static String toNameCase(String name) {
     * Basic plan:
     * 1.  Strategically create double spaces in front of characters to be capitalized
     * 2.  Capitalize characters with preceding spaces
     * 3.  Remove double spaces.
    // Make the string all lower case
    String workStr = name.trim().toLowerCase();
    // Collapse strings of spaces to single spaces
    workStr = workStr.replaceAll("[ ]+", " ");
    // "mc" names
    workStr = workStr.replaceAll("( mc)", "  $1  ");
    // Ensure there is one space after periods and commas
    workStr = workStr.replaceAll("(\\.|,)([^ ])", "$1 $2");
    // Add 2 spaces after periods, commas, hyphens and apostrophes
    workStr = workStr.replaceAll("(\\.|,|-|')", "$1  ");
    // Add a double space to the front of the string
    workStr = "  " + workStr;
    // Upshift each character that is preceded by a space and remove double spaces
    // Can't upshift using regular expressions and String methods
    // workStr = workStr.replaceAll("( [^ ])([^ ]+)", "$1"toUpperCase() + "$2");
    StringBuilder titleCase = new StringBuilder();
    for (int i = 0; i < workStr.length(); i++) {
        if (workStr.charAt(i) == ' ') {
            if (workStr.charAt(i+1) == ' ') {
                i += 2;
            while (i < workStr.length() && workStr.charAt(i) == ' ') {
                titleCase.append(workStr.charAt(i++));
            if (i < workStr.length()) {
                titleCase.append(workStr.substring(i, i+1).toUpperCase());
        } else {
            titleCase.append(workStr.charAt(i));
    return titleCase.toString();
{code}