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Since it appears that you're working with the DOM you might want to think about using HTML fragments rather than strings.

Here is one article on the subject: http://ejohn.org/blog/dom-documentfragments/

For your example, try using something like

$("<div />").css("display","inline-block").html("first Name");

Another related question on using fragments vs. strings: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2217409/jquery-best-practice-for-creating-complex-html-fragments