Paginate nested objects of a document

Is it possible to get the nested sub elements in a document in a paginated fashion. Example we have a document as below and we would know the document id

{
"_index": "index1",
"_type": "type1",
"_id": "81cabf3c-51f5-442a-b78d-4324c4344f51",
"_version": 1,
"found": true,
"_source": {
"chiild1" : "child1 value"
"names": [
{
"name": "John"
},
{
"name": "Walter"
},
{
"name": "Justin"
},
{
"name": "Cramer"
}
]
}
}

Can we run a query like below (It does not work but are there other options ?)

GET index1/type1/81cabf3c-51f5-442a-b78d-4324c4344f51?_source_include=names.name&start=0&size=2

{
"_index": "index1",
"_type": "type1",
"_id": "81cabf3c-51f5-442a-b78d-4324c4344f51",
"_version": 1,
"found": true,
"_source": {
"names": [
{
"name": "John"
},
{
"name": "Walter"
}
]
}
}

GET index1/type1/81cabf3c-51f5-442a-b78d-4324c4344f51?_source_include=names.name&start=2&size=2

{
"_index": "index1",
"_type": "type1",
"_id": "81cabf3c-51f5-442a-b78d-4324c4344f51",
"_version": 1,
"found": true,
"_source": {
"names": [
{
"name": "Justin"
},
{
"name": "Cramer"
}
]
}
}

No as it's still a single document.
Interesting idea though, maybe raise a FR on github?

Thanks for the response. I have created a FR on github - https://github.com/elastic/elasticsearch/issues/18850

To add to the information the sub elements are of nested type.

There are two ways to get access to nested objects via inner hits or using
aggregations (using top_hits aggregation inside a nested aggregation).

  1. Via inner hits you can get access to the nested objects on a per
    document basis:

curl -XGET "http://localhost:9200/_search" -d'
{
"query": {
"bool": {
"must": [
{
"match": {
"_id": "81cabf3c-51f5-442a-b78d-4324c4344f51"
}
},
{
"nested": {
"path": "names",
"query": {
"match_all": {}
},
"inner_hits" : {
"from" : 0,
"size" : 5
}
}
}
]
}
}
}'

https://www.elastic.co/guide/en/elasticsearch/reference/2.3/search-request-inner-hits.html#nested-inner-hits

  1. Via aggregations you can get access to nested documents too, but as
    individual documents:

curl -XGET "http://localhost:9200/_search" -d'
{
"query": {
"match": {
"_id": "81cabf3c-51f5-442a-b78d-4324c4344f51"
}
},
"aggs": {
"to-names": {
"nested": {
"path": "names"
},
"aggs": {
"names": {
"top_hits": {
"from": 0,
"size": 5
}
}
}
}
}
}'

If the query on the id field wasn't specified inner objects of other
documents would be returned too.

https://www.elastic.co/guide/en/elasticsearch/reference/2.3/search-aggregations-metrics-top-hits-aggregation.html#_top_hits_support_in_a_nested_or_reverse_nested_aggregator