From Windows experience, I could always elect Live search to only index file names not their content. Is this something that can be done with Spotlight on a Mac?

It used to index absolutely everything, for instance it would return a bunch of video files for any obscure character combination typed into the search field.

Right now I've disabled Spotlight entirely as per this answer, but it seems to have disabled searching altogether. For instance, Finder is yet to locate any .pdf files in a small directory as I'm typing this question (unlike windows search which would still be able to work even with indexing disabled)

Alternatively, if there is any way (including a trusted third-party app) that will index file names and metadata e.g. ID3 tags that would likely be the preferred option.