How to get Data from javascript call into presenter?

I have a jquery call to a presenter, which fetches data for an autocomplete/suggest in a form field.

<script>
$(function() {
        $( "#hint" ).autocomplete({
                source: "/recipes/admin/getingredients",
                minLength: 2
        });
});
</script>

In the presenter, I have this.

<?php
       public function actionGetIngredients( $name )
        {
                $data = $this->db->table('recipe_ingredient')->where('name LIKE ?', $name.'%')->fetchPairs('id', 'name');
                $this->sendJson( $data );
        }
?>

The issue is, that the variable $name is empty, or rather, null.
Everything works if I create a dummy array for name. eg: $name=[1=>‘foo’, 2=>‘bar’]
How do I get data, from the javascript, into the $name variable in the presenter?