1. A method implemented by a computer comprising at least one processor and at least one memory for facilitating searching and matching of data, comprising: receiving an input data string including one or more ideographic elements; converting the input data string to a Latin-based input data string at least in part by deconstructing the one or more ideographic elements into constituent radicals or strokes and cross-referencing a constituent radical or stroke to a pre-defined Latin character so as to generate one or more sets of Latin characters; generating one or more input keys based on the Latin-based input data string, including replacing any element in the Latin-based input data string that has a corresponding sounds-alike element to generate a phonetic key; searching, using the one or more input keys, a reference database stored in a memory device for one or more candidate records, wherein similar records in the database are indexed by a common lookup key; and if the one or more candidate records are found, determining a match score of the one or more candidate records.
8. The method of claim 1 wherein the constituent radical comprises a set of strokes pre-defined according to a given language.