using the reg expression split to get the words

[bowlofred]

If you're already using a regex, I'd just grab them all in one go. If match is successful, then all the match objects can be pulled out of the groups() method.

import re
name = "alpha(beta,gamma)"
m = re.match("(\w+)\((\w+),(\w+)\)",name)
print(m.groups())

Output:
('alpha', 'beta', 'gamma')