diff --git a/pom.xml b/pom.xml
index 73af201..190b33b 100644
--- a/pom.xml
+++ b/pom.xml
@@ -55,7 +55,7 @@
 	<properties>
 		<project.build.sourceEncoding>ISO-8859-1</project.build.sourceEncoding>
 		<junit.version>4.12</junit.version>
-		<commons.lang.version>2.6</commons.lang.version>
+		<commons.lang.version>3.12.0</commons.lang.version>
 	</properties>
 
 	<developers>
@@ -179,8 +179,8 @@
 	<dependencies>
 		<!-- [lang] -->
 		<dependency>
-			<groupId>commons-lang</groupId>
-			<artifactId>commons-lang</artifactId>
+			<groupId>org.apache.commons</groupId>
+			<artifactId>commons-lang3</artifactId>
 			<version>${commons.lang.version}</version>
 		</dependency>
 		<!-- testing -->
diff --git a/src/main/java/com/tupilabs/human_name_parser/HumanNameParserParser.java b/src/main/java/com/tupilabs/human_name_parser/HumanNameParserParser.java
index 9a9f54f..8d9d143 100644
--- a/src/main/java/com/tupilabs/human_name_parser/HumanNameParserParser.java
+++ b/src/main/java/com/tupilabs/human_name_parser/HumanNameParserParser.java
@@ -26,7 +26,7 @@
 import java.util.Arrays;
 import java.util.List;
 
-import org.apache.commons.lang.StringUtils;
+import org.apache.commons.lang3.StringUtils;
 
 /**
  * <p>A parser capable of parsing name parts out of a single string.</p>
diff --git a/src/test/java/com/tupilabs/human_name_parser/ParserTest.java b/src/test/java/com/tupilabs/human_name_parser/ParserTest.java
index c67337b..9e77fa5 100644
--- a/src/test/java/com/tupilabs/human_name_parser/ParserTest.java
+++ b/src/test/java/com/tupilabs/human_name_parser/ParserTest.java
@@ -31,7 +31,7 @@
 import java.io.IOException;
 import java.util.logging.Logger;
 
-import org.apache.commons.lang.StringUtils;
+import org.apache.commons.lang3.StringUtils;
 import org.junit.BeforeClass;
 import org.junit.Test;