extract names from a database

We need a script that extracts names from a list of emails. For example "Tim" should be extracted from this email "[login to view URL]@[login to view URL]" The script should analyze the text before @ symbol and compare this text to a list of common first names that should be stored in editable xml file. If a name can be extracted, it should be added to our simple text file in a separate column from email. The script should be able to run for a long time and not overload our server. It can be done in php, perl, python and needs to be installed and tested on our server. Or this could be a mac application. We want to be able to either upload a text file with emails to the system (using upload button) or paste the list of emails (can be up to 10 000) to a form. The results should be output to a separate file with a link to this file from the system. When the script is done processing it should display a message "done" and show a link to the produced text file. ## Deliverables I can suggest to go thorough the xml list of names such as: John Mark Marc Thomas Tom Tim Alex and see if any of those names appear in the part before @. Ignore Text Case of course. So here we can see tim in the email [login to view URL]@[login to view URL] If "doo" was also a name, please take the first name you see. Please capitalize all found names such as "tim" to "Tim". See a sample file of emails I attached. Lets work with the beginning of an email only. Emily@[login to view URL] Emily - is correct Emily@[login to view URL] Li - is not correct The name of the name should be same as the first part of the email, it should not be taken from the middle of the email.