Character type name?? How to lower case it?

I have this script:
      SELECT a.attname, t.typname, a.attlen
        FROM pg_class c, pg_attribute a, pg_type t
          WHERE c.relname = 'regis' and a.attname in
('var1','var2',var3');

but a.attname is of type name, inwhich text(..) or lower(..)
do not work with this type and I do not seem to be able to
convert type name to text....

Can someone help me get around this?

Thanks
--
Cheers

Douglas Nichols
dnichols@fhcrc.org
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center