Q:

MySQL compare string with national characters

I got a small trouble:
SELECT * FROM tableName tn WHERE LOWER(tn.name) = LOWER('place_string_here');

It's ok, when it does a perfect fit:

tn.name = orange_tree
place_string_here = Orange_Tree

But my issue is: national characters, eg.: 

Hästgård

I wish "Hästgård" to fit:
Hästgård,
Hästgard,
Hastgård and/or
Hastgard
Is there any smart way to do that? 

A:

I had the latin1_swedish_ci COLLATION on that field, which causes the error. 
After changing collation to utf8_general_ci (of the "name" field), It started working properly :-)

