diff --git a/lib/Biber/Internals.pm b/lib/Biber/Internals.pm
index d96e83cce..d468196b0 100644
--- a/lib/Biber/Internals.pm
+++ b/lib/Biber/Internals.pm
@@ -1674,19 +1674,21 @@ sub _namestring {
                 # The namepart is padded to the longest namepart in the ref
                 # section as this is the only way to make sorting work
                 # properly. The padding is spaces as this sorts before all
-                # glyphs but it also of variable weight and ignorable in
+                # glyphs but is also of variable weight and ignorable in
                 # DUCET so we have to set U::C to variable=>'non-ignorable'
                 # as sorting default so that spaces are non-ignorable
                 $nps = normalise_string_sort(join('', $npistring->@*), $field);
 
                 # pad all nameparts
-                $nps = sprintf("%-*s", $section->get_np_length("${namepart}-i"), $nps);
+                # have to NFC for the padding otherwise the glyph length calculations are wrong
+                $nps = NFD(sprintf("%-*s", $section->get_np_length("${namepart}-i"), NFC($nps)));
               }
               else {
                 $nps = normalise_string_sort($npstring, $field);
 
                 # pad all nameparts
-                $nps = sprintf("%-*s", $section->get_np_length($namepart), $nps);
+                # have to NFC for the padding otherwise the glyph length calculations are wrong
+                $nps = NFD(sprintf("%-*s", $section->get_np_length($namepart), NFC($nps)));
               }
               $kps .= $nps;
             }
diff --git a/t/sorting.t b/t/sorting.t
index 2d58fa5b6..a72397f10 100644
--- a/t/sorting.t
+++ b/t/sorting.t
@@ -73,9 +73,9 @@ my $lists3      = "IBM\x{10FFFD}";
 my $lists4      = "IBM!HP\x{10FFFD}";
 my $lists5      = 'IBM!HP!Sun!Sony';
 my $dates1      = '1979,1,2000000,1980,4,8,1924,6,7,1924,7,9,1924,0002,5,192,2,3,1979,3,4,79,3,3';
-my $edtypeclass1 = 'redactor,Jaffé       Philipp        ,Loewenfeld   Samuel         KaltenbrunnerFerdinand      Ewald        Paul           ';
-my $prefix1     = 'mm,,Luzzatto     Moshe Ḥayyim  ,,,Lashon la-Ramḥal: u-vo sheloshah ḥiburim,2000,';
-my $diacritic1  = 'mm,,Hasan        Alī           ,al-Hasan     ʿAlī          ,Hasan        Alī           ,Some title,2000,';
+my $edtypeclass1 = 'redactor,Jaffé        Philipp        ,Loewenfeld   Samuel         KaltenbrunnerFerdinand      Ewald        Paul           ';
+my $prefix1     = 'mm,,Luzzatto     Moshe Ḥayyim   ,,,Lashon la-Ramḥal: u-vo sheloshah ḥiburim,2000,';
+my $diacritic1  = 'mm,,Hasan        Alī            ,al-Hasan     ʿAlī           ,Hasan        Alī            ,Some title,2000,';
 my $labels      = '2005,3,2';
 my $sn1         = '';
 my $snk1        = 'mm,,John            John           vonDoe          Jr,,,0';