I think OSM's search system needs to be improved

[Minh_Nguyen (Minh Nguyễn)]

@dieterdreist

There is a shortcoming of nominatim we have in some countries where streets are named after the full names of people but common usage often omits the given names. Unless we tag short names (or alt_names) “for nominatim”, the streets aren’t found. Nobody (literally) would expect from a search form that they had to type the complete name.

Martin Luther King illustrates both this problem and the reverse: in some cases the street is named Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard but people know it as King Boulevard or MLK Boulevard; in other cases, the street is named Martin Luther King Street but people know it as Martin Luther King Jr. Street. It isn’t a big deal to special-case a few world-famous figures like Dr. King, but some things have been named “King” after a slaveowner, while other things may be named after Martin Luther, tripping up a pure edit distance algorithm. name:etymology:wikidata can help to solve this problem more generally.