CiviCRM Community Forums (archive)

If you use the format "Lastname, Firstname" you will only return people who have those particular first or last names.  So to search for all people with the surname Ryan, try Ryan,%.

In the name field you can also use the following format for a search

AND: term1, term2, term3 to return all people that have all of those terms in their name, e.g. 'AND: Joe Ryan' should return fewer results than 'Joe Ryan'.