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:
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/2217409/jquery-best-practice-for-creating-complex-html-fragments