JSFiddle - React, Tailwind, and code Playground
HTML
<textarea rows=4 id="mytextarea">John,2 Jane,3 John,4 Jane,5</textarea>
JavaScript
var textAreaValue = document.getElementById("mytextarea").value;
textAreaValue = textAreaValue.replace(/\s/g, ""); //remove white space
var rows = textAreaValue.replace(/(&#[13|10];)+/g, "\n").split("\n");
console.log(rows);