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While working in any application, sometimes we need lots of dummy data to test the workflow of entire application. Inside this article we will see how to generate random name of person in PHP with or without using faker library.

Faker library needs to be install by using composer. Once install, there are several properties, methods available to generate various type of fake data like Name, Email, Phone number etc.

This article is super easy to understand and implement in php programming. To use Faker library, your system must have composer installed. If don’t, please follow this article to install in Linux Operating System. How To Install Composer in Ubuntu 18.04 ?

Learn More –

To do for this article –

Generate Fake data for Name without using any library
Generate Names using Faker Library

Let’s get started.

Random Names without Using Any Library

Let’s create an application in PHP.

Create a folder with name php-random. Inside this folder create a file like index.php.

Open index.php and write this complete code into it.

<?php

// Function to return the name of a person on every call
function generateRandomName()
{
    $firstname = array(
        'Johnathon',
        'Anthony',
        'Erasmo',
        'Raleigh',
        'Nancie',
        'Tama',
        'Camellia',
        'Augustine',
        'Christeen',
        'Luz',
        'Diego',
        'Lyndia',
        'Thomas',
        'Georgianna',
        'Leigha',
        'Alejandro',
        'Marquis',
        'Joan',
        'Stephania',
        'Elroy',
        'Zonia',
        'Buffy',
        'Sharie',
        'Blythe',
        'Gaylene',
        'Elida',
        'Randy',
        'Margarete',
        'Margarett',
        'Dion',
        'Tomi',
        'Arden',
        'Clora',
        'Laine',
        'Becki',
        'Margherita',
        'Bong',
        'Jeanice',
        'Qiana',
        'Lawanda',
        'Rebecka',
        'Maribel',
        'Tami',
        'Yuri',
        'Michele',
        'Rubi',
        'Larisa',
        'Lloyd',
        'Tyisha',
        'Samatha',
    );

    $lastname = array(
        'Mischke',
        'Serna',
        'Pingree',
        'Mcnaught',
        'Pepper',
        'Schildgen',
        'Mongold',
        'Wrona',
        'Geddes',
        'Lanz',
        'Fetzer',
        'Schroeder',
        'Block',
        'Mayoral',
        'Fleishman',
        'Roberie',
        'Latson',
        'Lupo',
        'Motsinger',
        'Drews',
        'Coby',
        'Redner',
        'Culton',
        'Howe',
        'Stoval',
        'Michaud',
        'Mote',
        'Menjivar',
        'Wiers',
        'Paris',
        'Grisby',
        'Noren',
        'Damron',
        'Kazmierczak',
        'Haslett',
        'Guillemette',
        'Buresh',
        'Center',
        'Kucera',
        'Catt',
        'Badon',
        'Grumbles',
        'Antes',
        'Byron',
        'Volkman',
        'Klemp',
        'Pekar',
        'Pecora',
        'Schewe',
        'Ramage',
    );

    $name = $firstname[rand(0, count($firstname) - 1)];
    $name .= ' ';
    $name .= $lastname[rand(0, count($lastname) - 1)];

    return $name;
}

// for single name
echo generateRandomName();

// for 10 person names
for ($i = 0; $i < 10; $i++) {
    echo generateRandomName() . "<br/>";
}

To use function, simply call it by it’s name as –

echo generateRandomName();

Random Names Using Faker Library

Create a folder with name php-faker. Inside this folder create these files –

composer.json
index.php

We need composer.json file because we will install faker library. Write this curly pairs in composer.json file.

{}

If you don’t write this, probably you will get this error on terminal when we install composer package.

Install Faker Library

Open project in terminal and run this command.

$ composer require fzaninotto/faker

After installation of this package, automatically composer.json file get updated.

{
    "require": {
        "fzaninotto/faker": "^1.9"
    }
}

Also you will see inside your application setup, you have now a vendor folder. This is package installed folder, don’t do anything with that.

Load Faker Library to Application

Open index.php file and use require_once php function to include faker library.

<?php

require_once 'vendor/autoload.php';

// use the factory to create a Faker\Generator instance 
$faker = Faker\Factory::create();

...

Use Faker\Factory::create() to create and initialize a faker generator.

Using Faker Library Property

Open index.php and write this code into it. This is for getting single name of person

<?php
  
require_once 'vendor/autoload.php';
  
// use the factory to create a Faker\Generator instance
$faker = Faker\Factory::create();

// generate data by accessing properties
echo $faker->name;
// 'Lucy Cechtelar';

Generate 100 Test Users

<?php
  
require_once 'vendor/autoload.php';
  
// use the factory to create a Faker\Generator instance
$faker = Faker\Factory::create();

for ($i = 0; $i < 100; $i++) {
  echo $faker->name . "<br/>";
}

We hope this article helped you to learn How to Generate Random Name of Person in PHP in a very detailed way.

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