MySQL DB selects records with and without umlauts. e.g: '.. where something = FÖÖ'
SELECT * FROM table WHERE some_field LIKE ('%ö%' COLLATE utf8_bin)
A list of the collations offered by MySQL for Unicode character sets can be found here:
http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.0/en/charset-unicode-sets.html
If you want to go all-out and require strings to be absolutely identical in order to test as equal, you can use utf8_bin (the binary collation). Otherwise, you may need to do some experimentation with the different collations on offer.
For scandinavian letters you can use utf8_swedish_ci fir example.
Here is the character grouping for utf8_swedish_ci. It shows which characters are interpreted as the same.http://collation-charts.org/mysql60/mysql604.utf8_swedish_ci.html
Here's the directory listing for other collations. I'm no sure which is the used utf8_general_ci though. http://collation-charts.org/mysql60/