The names of individuals must be entered with the last name first, as in SMITH, JOHN Q. Searching is case-insensitive. The portion in front of the comma (or if no comma, the portion in front of the first space) is considered the "first field." This is equivalent to the individual's surname. In this first field only, a question mark may follow two or more letters to force a leading-letters matching mode. For example, SM?, JOHN would find SMYTHE and SMITH, if their first name is JOHN. The more common the name, the more it helps to specify the first name, or at least the first initial.

The names of groups and corporations are entered normally, except that little words such as "on," "of," and "the" should be dropped. If you don't know how to spell someone's name, enter this individual's last name (surname) only, using your best guess for the spelling.This will produce a list of names that may sound similar.