title: Laravel 5.1 validation rule alpha cannot take whitespace
body: <p>I have created a a registration form where a farmer will input his name. The name may contain hyphen or white spaces. The validation rules are written in the <code>app/http/requests/farmerRequest.php</code> file:</p>
  
  <pre><code>public function rules()
  {
      return [
          'name'     =&gt; 'required|alpha',
          'email'    =&gt; 'email|unique:users,email',
          'password' =&gt; 'required',
          'phone'    =&gt; 'required|numeric',
          'address'  =&gt; 'required|min:5',
      ];
  }
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>But the problem is the <code>name</code> field is not allowing any white spaces because of the <code>alpha</code> rule. The <code>name</code> field is <code>varchar(255) collation utf8_unicode_ci</code>.</p>
  
  <p>What should I do, so that user can input his name with white spaces?</p>