I m trying to match beignning of words in a mysql column that stores strings as varchar. Unfortunately, REGEXP does not seem to work for UTF-8 strings as mentioned [here](http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.1/en/regexp.html#operator_regexp)

So,

> 
> `select * from names where name REGEXP '[[:<:]]Aandre';`
> 
> 
> 

does not work if I have name like Foobar Aándreas 

However, 

> 
> select \* from names where name like '%andre%'
> 
> 
> 

matches the row I need but does not guarantee beginning of words matches.

Is it better to do the like and filter it out on the application side ? Any other solutions?