Partial Word Search in Lists

Question

We are currently working on moving our internal website to SharePoint. In our current website, we have a searchable phone list. The user can start typing the name (partial word search), click Search, and it brings up everyone with whatever we typed.

So, for SharePoint site, we created a List for the phone list. For partial word searches, Microsoft insists that you need to add a wildcard in the Search field in order for the "List" to show just those names. It does show as you type right under the Search field, but if you click on one, it brings you to the person's record, not the "List".

We have over 1500 users, and to train them to include the wildcard will be difficult. It would be best if we can search without the wildcard. Research shows that you can turn off wildcard in previous versions of SharePoint, but nothing for M365. I did ask Microsoft Support and they informed me that it could not be done. I also asked - Since the Search won’t do this, can we possible add our own field to Lists that we can code to search the records? If so, do you have documentation on how to do this? They referred me to other Microsoft Unified and Premier Support (which I am trying to figure out if we have). In the meantime, do you have any ideas? Want to do partial word searches in Lists without having to type the wildcard. Just so you know our experience - I do work in our County's computer department, I have programming experience, and we have multiple other individuals that can code, but have never done programming in any M365 applications except VBA in Access.

New to this forum and tried to search but not finding anything. Have to figure out how to get around still - lol...