Creating class that throws errors

[Sheriff]

I created a class Person:

public class Person {
    protected static int MAX_AGE = 150;
    protected static int MIN_AGE = 0;

    private static final String VALID_WORD_REGEXP = "[a-zA-Z]{3,30}";

    private String firstName;
    private String lastName;

    private int age;

    Person(){
        setFirstName("anonymous");
        setLastName("anonymous");
        setAge(18);
    }

    Person(String firstName, String lastName, int age){
        setFirstName(firstName);
        setLastName(lastName);
        setAge(age);
    }

    public void setFirstName(String firstName){
        if(isValidWord(firstName)){
            this.firstName = firstName;
        }else{
            throw new IllegalArgumentException("Invalid first name");
        }
    }

    public void setLastName(String lastName){
        if(isValidWord(lastName)){
            this.lastName = lastName;
        }else{
            throw new IllegalArgumentException("Invalid last name");
        }
    }

    private boolean isValidWord(String word){
        return word.matches(VALID_WORD_REGEXP);
    }

    public void setAge(int age){
        if(isValidAge(age)){
            this.age = age;
        }else{
            throw new IllegalArgumentException("Age is not in a range of [" + MIN_AGE + "-" + MAX_AGE + "]");
        }
    }

    private boolean isValidAge(int age){
        return age >= MIN_AGE && age <= MAX_AGE;
    }

    String getFirstName(){
        return firstName;
    }

    String getLastName(){
        return lastName;
    }

    int getAge(){
        return age;
    }

}

I'm trying to learn right way how to throw exceptions. If I'm doing something wrong let me know and tell me how to fix it.

Besides that I have couple questions:

1. I can't quite understand throws statement. I'm thinking throws statement is for passing exceptions one level higher(with are not cought in this caller function). So that would mean I need to put throws in this function only:

   Person(String firstName, String lastName, int age)

   . Am I right or wrong and is there any other use for it?
2. If so that would mean when

   Person person = new Person(.....)

   , must be in try tags. How can I avoid it?

[DarrylBurke]

Have you discovered the Oracle tutorials?
Lesson: Exceptions (The Javaâ„¢ Tutorials > Essential Classes)

db