I just searched artist index for fred and was a bit surprised it return Fred Astaire, Fred Frith, Fred de Fred  and Fred Steiner before any artists just called Fred

https://musicbrainz.org/search?query=fred&type=artist&method=indexed

I then tried an advanced search just on artist:fred and the first first Fred  didn't come until bottom of the page.

https://musicbrainz.org/search?query=artist%3Afred&type=artist&limit=25&method=advanced

I know it was decided to boost popular artists over less popular ones (which doesnt seem very musicbrainz which is why I never did it), but shouldn't exact name matches should come before partial matches (a search for Fred is a better match to Fred then to Fred Astaire)