The "strip" function removes the spaces on the left and right, but does not remove the spaces between the words:
raw_data = {'NAME': [' José Luiz da Silva ']}
df = pd.DataFrame(raw_data, columns = ['NAME'])
df['NAME'] = df['NAME'].str.strip()
import pandas as pd
rdata = {'NAME': [' José Luiz da Silva ']}
df = pd.DataFrame(rdata, columns = ['NAME'])
for i, row in df.iterrows():
df.set_value(i,'NAME',' '.join(row.NAME.split()))
print (df)
Output:
NAME
0 José Luiz da Silva