I was surprised I couldn't find a function to do this, but I didn't look too hard as this quick and dirty version wasn't too difficult to write.
Code:
function getInitials($name){
//split name using spaces
$words=explode(" ",$name);
$inits='';
//loop through array extracting initial letters
foreach($words as $word){
$inits.=strtoupper(substr($word,0,1));
}
return $inits;
}