...especially when it's not mapped or indexed properly. Surely, someone wise in the ways of data at Facebook would have seen this one coming long before the feature got implemented. To get to this drop-down list, pick one of your friends that has a viewable Friends list, and then change the category selector to filter the list. It doesn't matter what category you choose (other than by Name), all other categories will result in the same un-targeted category results.
Example. A search by "hometown" yields these sample selections, where the match is based on any letter match, say "*a*" versus "a*". It makes a big world of difference to start the match based on criteria that comes after the first letter that a user keys in than what it is today, a match based on any placement in a phrase or word. See image below:
