better functionality in query ?

I'm in process of creating a online whitepages directory for a small town phone company and I am having a little difficulty in refining my selection. My search form has two fields; last and first name. I would like to be able to have more of a wild card approach and some refinement when a user enters both a first and last name. I am unsure how to go about this, should I restructure my query, or make changes to my PHP. here is the query I am currently using. and the site is located at http://whitepages.maadtelco.com/ any assistance/direction is certainly appreciated. <snip> $query = "select * from whitepages WHERE last_name LIKE '$last_name' ORDER BY last_name" or die("Nothing to see here"); </snip> Jerry Lake - jerryl@europa.com Web Designer Europa Communications - http://www.europa.com Pacifier Online - http://www.pacifier.com