diff --git a/daemon/src/Makefile.am b/daemon/src/Makefile.am
index 76d37fe670e7342ec36e40f32d84f0cf3e62a23c..184241a6b8e790c493e284299faefb1b3a6d04ba 100644
--- a/daemon/src/Makefile.am
+++ b/daemon/src/Makefile.am
@@ -91,6 +91,7 @@ libsflphone_la_SOURCES = conference.cpp \
 		fileutils.cpp \
 		threadloop.cpp \
 		ip_utils.cpp \
+		utf8_utils.cpp \
 		threadloop.h \
 		conference.h \
 		voiplink.h \
@@ -105,6 +106,7 @@ libsflphone_la_SOURCES = conference.cpp \
 		numbercleaner.h \
 		fileutils.h \
 		noncopyable.h \
+		utf8_utils.h \
 		sfl_types.h \
 		array_size.h \
 		account_schema.h \
diff --git a/daemon/src/sip/sip_utils.cpp b/daemon/src/sip/sip_utils.cpp
index e81d38753e9dc9f0c0c32f4ed3acf65fe186c1c0..9650104cceb1ab5a828dd8535b866b1f6fdc7c34 100644
--- a/daemon/src/sip/sip_utils.cpp
+++ b/daemon/src/sip/sip_utils.cpp
@@ -31,6 +31,7 @@
 
 #include "sip_utils.h"
 #include "logger.h"
+#include "utf8_utils.h"
 
 #include <pjsip.h>
 #include <pjsip_ua.h>
@@ -96,14 +97,6 @@ sip_utils::createRouteSet(const std::string &route, pj_pool_t *hdr_pool)
     return route_set;
 }
 
-static bool
-isValidUtf8(const std::string &str)
-{
-    std::wstring ws(str.size(), u' ');
-    const size_t wideSize = mbstowcs(&ws[0], str.c_str(), str.size());
-    return wideSize != std::wstring::npos;
-}
-
 // FIXME: replace with regex
 std::string
 sip_utils::parseDisplayName(const char * buffer)
@@ -148,10 +141,9 @@ sip_utils::parseDisplayName(const char * buffer)
     std::string displayName = temp.substr(begin_displayName + 1,
                                           end_displayName - begin_displayName - 1);
 
-    // Filter out invalid UTF-8 sequences to avoid getting kicked from D-Bus
-    if (not isValidUtf8(displayName)) {
-        ERROR("Invalid UTF-8 sequence detected: %s", displayName.c_str());
-        return "";
+    // Filter out invalid UTF-8 characters to avoid getting kicked from D-Bus
+    if (not utf8_validate(displayName)) {
+        return utf8_make_valid(displayName);
     }
 
     static const size_t MAX_DISPLAY_NAME_SIZE = 25;
diff --git a/daemon/src/utf8_utils.cpp b/daemon/src/utf8_utils.cpp
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000000000000000000000000000000000..72af6a6d8e5d1a935f6cff0c18c60ee7b1e156a6
--- /dev/null
+++ b/daemon/src/utf8_utils.cpp
@@ -0,0 +1,304 @@
+/*
+ *  Copyright (C) 1999 Tom Tromey
+ *  Copyright (C) 2000 Red Hat, Inc.
+ *  Copyright (C) 2014 Savoir-Faire Linux Inc.
+ *
+ *  Author: Pascal Potvin <pascal.potvin@extenway.com>
+ *
+ *  This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
+ *  it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
+ *  the Free Software Foundation; either version 3 of the License, or
+ *  (at your option) any later version.
+ *
+ *  This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
+ *  but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
+ *  MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the
+ *  GNU General Public License for more details.
+ *
+ *  You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
+ *  along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software
+ *  Foundation, Inc., 51 Franklin Street, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA  02110-1301 USA.
+ *
+ *  Additional permission under GNU GPL version 3 section 7:
+ *
+ *  If you modify this program, or any covered work, by linking or
+ *  combining it with the OpenSSL project's OpenSSL library (or a
+ *  modified version of that library), containing parts covered by the
+ *  terms of the OpenSSL or SSLeay licenses, Savoir-Faire Linux Inc.
+ *  grants you additional permission to convey the resulting work.
+ *  Corresponding Source for a non-source form of such a combination
+ *  shall include the source code for the parts of OpenSSL used as well
+ *  as that of the covered work.
+ */
+
+
+#include <cstring>
+#include <cassert>
+#include "utf8_utils.h"
+
+/*
+ * The LIKELY and UNLIKELY macros let the programmer give hints to
+ * the compiler about the expected result of an expression. Some compilers
+ * can use this information for optimizations.
+ */
+#if defined(__GNUC__) && (__GNUC__ > 2) && defined(__OPTIMIZE__)
+#define LIKELY(expr) (__builtin_expect (expr, 1))
+#define UNLIKELY(expr) (__builtin_expect (expr, 0))
+#else
+#define LIKELY(expr) (expr)
+#define UNLIKELY(expr) (expr)
+#endif
+
+
+/*
+ * Check whether a Unicode (5.2) char is in a valid range.
+ *
+ * The first check comes from the Unicode guarantee to never encode
+ * a point above 0x0010ffff, since UTF-16 couldn't represent it.
+ *
+ * The second check covers surrogate pairs (category Cs).
+ *
+ * @param Char the character
+ */
+#define UNICODE_VALID(Char)                   \
+    ((Char) < 0x110000 &&                     \
+     (((Char) & 0xFFFFF800) != 0xD800))
+
+#define CONTINUATION_CHAR                           \
+  if ((*(unsigned char *)p & 0xc0) != 0x80) /* 10xxxxxx */ \
+    goto error;                                     \
+  val <<= 6;                                        \
+  val |= (*(unsigned char *)p) & 0x3f;
+
+static const char *
+fast_validate(const char *str)
+{
+    char32_t val = 0;
+    char32_t min = 0;
+    const char *p;
+
+    for (p = str; *p; p++) {
+        if (*(unsigned char *)p < 128)
+            /* done */;
+        else {
+            const char *last;
+
+            last = p;
+
+            if ((*(unsigned char *)p & 0xe0) == 0xc0) { /* 110xxxxx */
+                if (UNLIKELY((*(unsigned char *)p & 0x1e) == 0))
+                    goto error;
+
+                p++;
+
+                if (UNLIKELY((*(unsigned char *)p & 0xc0) != 0x80))  /* 10xxxxxx */
+                    goto error;
+            } else {
+                if ((*(unsigned char *)p & 0xf0) == 0xe0) { /* 1110xxxx */
+                    min = (1 << 11);
+                    val = *(unsigned char *)p & 0x0f;
+                    goto TWO_REMAINING;
+                } else if ((*(unsigned char *)p & 0xf8) == 0xf0) { /* 11110xxx */
+                    min = (1 << 16);
+                    val = *(unsigned char *)p & 0x07;
+                } else
+                    goto error;
+
+                p++;
+                CONTINUATION_CHAR;
+TWO_REMAINING:
+                p++;
+                CONTINUATION_CHAR;
+                p++;
+                CONTINUATION_CHAR;
+
+                if (UNLIKELY(val < min))
+                    goto error;
+
+                if (UNLIKELY(!UNICODE_VALID(val)))
+                    goto error;
+            }
+
+            continue;
+
+error:
+            return last;
+        }
+    }
+
+    return p;
+}
+
+static const char *
+fast_validate_len(const char *str, ssize_t max_len)
+{
+    char32_t val = 0;
+    char32_t min = 0;
+    const char *p;
+
+    assert(max_len >= 0);
+
+    for (p = str; ((p - str) < max_len) && *p; p++) {
+        if (*(unsigned char *)p < 128)
+            /* done */;
+        else {
+            const char *last;
+
+            last = p;
+
+            if ((*(unsigned char *)p & 0xe0) == 0xc0) { /* 110xxxxx */
+                if (UNLIKELY(max_len - (p - str) < 2))
+                    goto error;
+
+                if (UNLIKELY((*(unsigned char *)p & 0x1e) == 0))
+                    goto error;
+
+                p++;
+
+                if (UNLIKELY((*(unsigned char *)p & 0xc0) != 0x80))  /* 10xxxxxx */
+                    goto error;
+            } else {
+                if ((*(unsigned char *)p & 0xf0) == 0xe0) { /* 1110xxxx */
+                    if (UNLIKELY(max_len - (p - str) < 3))
+                        goto error;
+
+                    min = (1 << 11);
+                    val = *(unsigned char *)p & 0x0f;
+                    goto TWO_REMAINING;
+                } else if ((*(unsigned char *)p & 0xf8) == 0xf0) { /* 11110xxx */
+                    if (UNLIKELY(max_len - (p - str) < 4))
+                        goto error;
+
+                    min = (1 << 16);
+                    val = *(unsigned char *)p & 0x07;
+                } else
+                    goto error;
+
+                p++;
+                CONTINUATION_CHAR;
+TWO_REMAINING:
+                p++;
+                CONTINUATION_CHAR;
+                p++;
+                CONTINUATION_CHAR;
+
+                if (UNLIKELY(val < min))
+                    goto error;
+
+                if (UNLIKELY(!UNICODE_VALID(val)))
+                    goto error;
+            }
+
+            continue;
+
+error:
+            return last;
+        }
+    }
+
+    return p;
+}
+
+/**
+ * utf8_validate_c_str:
+ * @str: a pointer to character data
+ * @max_len: max bytes to validate, or -1 to go until NULL
+ * @end: return location for end of valid data
+ *
+ * Validates UTF-8 encoded text. @str is the text to validate;
+ * if @str is nul-terminated, then @max_len can be -1, otherwise
+ * @max_len should be the number of bytes to validate.
+ * If @end is non-%NULL, then the end of the valid range
+ * will be stored there (i.e. the start of the first invalid
+ * character if some bytes were invalid, or the end of the text
+ * being validated otherwise).
+ *
+ * Note that utf8_validate() returns %false if @max_len is
+ * positive and any of the @max_len bytes are nul.
+ *
+ * Returns true if all of @str was valid. Dbus requires valid UTF-8 as input;
+ * sip packets should also be encoded in utf8; so data read from a file or the
+ * network should be checked with utf8_validate() before doing anything else
+ * with it.
+ *
+ * Returns: true if the text was valid UTF-8
+ */
+bool
+utf8_validate_c_str(const char *str, ssize_t max_len, const char **end)
+{
+    const char *p;
+
+    if (max_len < 0)
+        p = fast_validate(str);
+    else
+        p = fast_validate_len(str, max_len);
+
+    if (end)
+        *end = p;
+
+    if ((max_len >= 0 && p != str + max_len) ||
+            (max_len < 0 && *p != '\0'))
+        return false;
+    else
+        return true;
+}
+
+bool
+utf8_validate(const std::string & str)
+{
+    const char *p;
+
+    p = fast_validate(str.c_str());
+
+    return (*p == '\0');
+}
+
+std::string
+utf8_make_valid(const std::string & name)
+{
+    ssize_t remaining_bytes = name.size();
+    ssize_t valid_bytes;
+    const char *remainder = name.c_str();
+    const char *invalid;
+    char *str = NULL;
+    char *pos;
+
+    while (remaining_bytes != 0) {
+        if (utf8_validate_c_str(remainder, remaining_bytes, &invalid))
+            break;
+
+        valid_bytes = invalid - remainder;
+
+        if (str == NULL)
+            // If every byte is replaced by U+FFFD, max(strlen(string)) == 3 * name.size()
+            str = new char[3 * remaining_bytes];
+
+        pos = str;
+
+        strncpy(pos, remainder, valid_bytes);
+        pos += valid_bytes;
+
+        /* append U+FFFD REPLACEMENT CHARACTER */
+        pos[0] = '\357';
+        pos[1] = '\277';
+        pos[2] = '\275';
+
+        pos += 3;
+
+        remaining_bytes -= valid_bytes + 1;
+        remainder = invalid + 1;
+    }
+
+    if (str == NULL)
+        return std::string(name);
+
+    strncpy(pos, remainder, remaining_bytes);
+    pos += remaining_bytes;
+
+    std::string answer(str, pos - str);
+    assert(utf8_validate_c_str(answer.c_str(), -1, NULL));
+
+    delete[] str;
+
+    return answer;
+}
diff --git a/daemon/src/utf8_utils.h b/daemon/src/utf8_utils.h
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000000000000000000000000000000000..88a1ca921915deb2e5c74160923497f11ab47b27
--- /dev/null
+++ b/daemon/src/utf8_utils.h
@@ -0,0 +1,69 @@
+/*
+ *  Copyright (C) 1999 Tom Tromey
+ *  Copyright (C) 2000 Red Hat, Inc.
+ *  Copyright (C) 2014 Savoir-Faire Linux Inc.
+ *
+ *  Author: Pascal Potvin <pascal.potvin@extenway.com>
+ *
+ *  This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
+ *  it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
+ *  the Free Software Foundation; either version 3 of the License, or
+ *  (at your option) any later version.
+ *
+ *  This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
+ *  but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
+ *  MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the
+ *  GNU General Public License for more details.
+ *
+ *  You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
+ *  along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software
+ *  Foundation, Inc., 51 Franklin Street, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA  02110-1301 USA.
+ *
+ *  Additional permission under GNU GPL version 3 section 7:
+ *
+ *  If you modify this program, or any covered work, by linking or
+ *  combining it with the OpenSSL project's OpenSSL library (or a
+ *  modified version of that library), containing parts covered by the
+ *  terms of the OpenSSL or SSLeay licenses, Savoir-Faire Linux Inc.
+ *  grants you additional permission to convey the resulting work.
+ *  Corresponding Source for a non-source form of such a combination
+ *  shall include the source code for the parts of OpenSSL used as well
+ *  as that of the covered work.
+ */
+
+#ifndef H_UTF8_UTILS
+#define H_UTF8_UTILS
+
+#include <cstdlib>
+#include <string>
+
+/**
+ * utf8_validate:
+ *
+ * Validates UTF-8 encoded text. @str is the text to validate;
+ *
+ * Returns true if all of @str was valid. Dbus requires valid UTF-8 as input;
+ * sip packets should also be encoded in utf8; so data read from a file or the
+ * network should be checked with utf8_validate() before doing anything else
+ * with it.
+ *
+ * Returns: true if the text was valid UTF-8
+ */
+
+bool
+utf8_validate(const std::string & str);
+
+/**
+ * utf8_make_valid:
+ * @name: a pointer to a nul delimited string.
+ *
+ * Transforms a unknown c_string into a pretty utf8 encoded std::string.
+ * Every unreadable or invalid byte will be transformed into U+FFFD
+ * (REPLACEMENT CHARACTER).
+ *
+ * Returns: a valid utf8 string.
+ */
+std::string
+utf8_make_valid(const std::string & name);
+
+#endif // H_UTF8_UTILS
diff --git a/daemon/test/siptest.cpp b/daemon/test/siptest.cpp
index 2ff65f971ca4c1c08a90fcbb7e960847e5298774..22ed5bbec1b2c6f72654aa4a503c5406bddbb9f0 100644
--- a/daemon/test/siptest.cpp
+++ b/daemon/test/siptest.cpp
@@ -384,7 +384,8 @@ void SIPTest::testParseDisplayName()
     {"\nFrom: <sip:pinger@sipwise.local>;tag=01f516a4", ""},
     {"\nFrom: sip:pinger@sipwise.local;tag=01f516a4", ""},
     {"\nFrom: ", ""},
-    {"\nFrom: \"±\"", ""},
+    {"\nFrom: \"\xb1""Alejandro P\xc3\xa9rez\" <sip:1111@10.0.0.1>;tag=3a7516a63bdbo0", "\xef\xbf\xbd""Alejandro P\xc3\xa9rez"},
+    {"\nFrom: \"Alejandro P\xc3\xa9rez\" <sip:1111@10.0.0.1>;tag=3a7516a63bdbo0", "Alejandro P\xc3\xa9rez"},
     {"\nFrom: sip:+1212555@server.example.com;tag=887s", ""}};
 
     for (const auto &t : test_set) {