Perhaps there could even be an option to suggest items of potential authors based on co-occurring items or strings. This usually works nicely if multiple co-authors have already been identified, as in the example pasted in below.

Some relevant query examples: https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Wikidata:WikiProject_Source_MetaData/Wikidata_lists/Author_name_strings_that_are_on_multiple_papers_with_at_least_three_identical_co-authors

Hi @Daniel-Mietchen - have you tried the "Suggest matches?" toggle at the top of the page? Also I find that "Use "stated as" names" is helpful for this. But I agree that it would be nice to have a mechanism that works even when there are no such matching suggestions.