diff --git a/apps/openmw/mwstate/character.cpp b/apps/openmw/mwstate/character.cpp
index 7216e45df6..52696de104 100644
--- a/apps/openmw/mwstate/character.cpp
+++ b/apps/openmw/mwstate/character.cpp
@@ -58,7 +58,7 @@ void MWState::Character::addSlot (const ESM::SavedGame& profile)
     while(!description.eof())
     {
         auto c = description.consume();
-        if(c > 0 && c <= 0x7F && std::isalnum(c)) // Ignore multibyte characters and non alphanumeric characters
+        if(c <= 0x7F && std::isalnum(c)) // Ignore multibyte characters and non alphanumeric characters
             stream << static_cast<char>(c);
         else
             stream << '_';
diff --git a/apps/openmw/mwstate/charactermanager.cpp b/apps/openmw/mwstate/charactermanager.cpp
index 027a4f38a4..301f33c5df 100644
--- a/apps/openmw/mwstate/charactermanager.cpp
+++ b/apps/openmw/mwstate/charactermanager.cpp
@@ -5,6 +5,8 @@
 
 #include <boost/filesystem.hpp>
 
+#include <components/misc/utf8stream.hpp>
+
 MWState::CharacterManager::CharacterManager (const boost::filesystem::path& saves,
     const std::vector<std::string>& contentFiles)
 : mPath (saves), mCurrent (nullptr), mGame (getFirstGameFile(contentFiles))
@@ -57,12 +59,14 @@ MWState::Character* MWState::CharacterManager::createCharacter(const std::string
     std::ostringstream stream;
 
     // The character name is user-supplied, so we need to escape the path
-    for (std::string::const_iterator it = name.begin(); it != name.end(); ++it)
+    Utf8Stream nameStream(name);
+    while(!nameStream.eof())
     {
-        if (std::isalnum(*it)) // Ignores multibyte characters and non alphanumeric characters
-            stream << *it;
+        auto c = nameStream.consume();
+        if(c <= 0x7F && std::isalnum(c)) // Ignore multibyte characters and non alphanumeric characters
+            stream << static_cast<char>(c);
         else
-            stream << "_";
+            stream << '_';
     }
 
     boost::filesystem::path path = mPath / stream.str();