Full Name search query We currently have a solution for this in production, but it's pretty bad. I'd like a fresh perspective on it please.

We have a PERSON table with an ID, LAST_NAME, FIRST_NAME, MIDDLE_NAME, and SUFFIX_NAME. All these columns (except ID of course) are nullable.

What is the best way to index this table, and what is the best way to query for full name with wildcards?

This is used in a web app, and we need to allow the user to search for something like

Smit*, Bob


and it return "Bob Smith", "Bobby Smithson", etc.

We will not allow the user to sort results.
You have two options I can think of:


Index for a specific set of user searches

or
Full Text Search


For option 1, you need to convert your search string "Smit*, Bob" into something you are indexing on, eg: where upper(last_name) like 'SMIT%' and upper(first_name) like 'BOB%' with function based indexes on upper(last_name) and perhaps upper(first_name)