How to remove a letter initial from a name in python?

Question

I have a dataframe contains a name column with this format (last name, first name initial) like below. The initial will be always at the last and has one letter only.

How to remove the initial? I know re may be able to handle this task but I am not sure how the pattern would look like. Any advice would be great.

import pandas as pd
d={'name':['Smith, John', 'Smith, Johnson W', 'Smith, Joan D', 'Smith, Joan X', 'Smith, Brian Borbinson] }
df=pd.DataFrame(data=d)

Answer 1

import pandas as pd
import re

d={'name':['Smith, John', 'Smith, Johnson W',
           'Smith, Joan D', 'Smith, Joan X', 'Smith, Brian Borbinson'] }
df=pd.DataFrame(data=d)


def remove_second_name_initial(string):
    string_copy = string
    string_surname = string.split(', ')[0]
    string_name = string.split(', ')[1]
    string_first_name = string_name.split(' ')[0]
    try:
        string_second_name = string_name.split(' ')[1]
    except:
        # In case that there is not initial or second name
        return string_surname + ', ' + string_name
    if len(string_second_name) == 1:
        # Just removing the intial
        return string_surname+', '+string_first_name
    # this give back the whole name, this is to leave the complete second name
    # as in Smith, Brian Borbinson
    return string_surname+', '+string_name

df.apply(lambda x:remove_second_name_initial(x['name']) ,axis = 1)
0               Smith, John
1            Smith, Johnson
2               Smith, Joan
3               Smith, Joan
4    Smith, Brian Borbinson
dtype: object