ereg

I'm trying to validate a persons name using ereg("^[a-zA-Z[:space:]\\']*$", $name]). This would allow all alpha characters, spaces, and an apostophe. The problem I am having is that the output of $name shows something like O\'Tool, instead of O'Tool. How do I get rid of the slash. Stripslashes does not work, but I don't think using this is appropriate in this situation anyway. Thanks