diff --git a/utils/src/name_hash.h b/utils/src/name_hash.h
new file mode 100644
index 00000000..e5fa6e6f
--- /dev/null
+++ b/utils/src/name_hash.h
@@ -0,0 +1,46 @@
+#ifndef _SCOUTFS_NAME_HASH_H_
+#define _SCOUTFS_NAME_HASH_H_
+
+#include "hash.h"
+
+/*
+ * Test a bit number as though an array of bytes is a large len-bit
+ * big-endian value.  nr 0 is the LSB of the final byte, nr (len - 1) is
+ * the MSB of the first byte.
+ */
+static int test_be_bytes_bit(int nr, const char *bytes, int len)
+{
+	return bytes[(len - 1 - nr) >> 3] & (1 << (nr & 7));
+}
+
+/*
+ * Generate a 32bit "fingerprint" of the name by extracting 32 evenly
+ * distributed bits from the name.  The intent is to have the sort order
+ * of the fingerprints reflect the memcmp() sort order of the names
+ * while mapping large names down to small fs keys.
+ *
+ * Names that are smaller than 32bits are biased towards the high bits
+ * of the fingerprint so that most significant bits of the fingerprints
+ * consistently reflect the initial characters of the names.
+ */
+static inline u32 dirent_name_fingerprint(const char *name, unsigned int name_len)
+{
+	int name_bits = name_len * 8;
+	int skip = max(name_bits / 32, 1);
+	u32 fp = 0;
+	int f;
+	int n;
+
+	for (f = 31, n = name_bits - 1; f >= 0 && n >= 0; f--, n -= skip)
+		fp |= !!test_be_bytes_bit(n, name, name_bits) << f;
+
+	return fp;
+}
+
+static inline u64 dirent_name_hash(const char *name, unsigned int name_len)
+{
+       return scoutfs_hash32(name, name_len) |
+              ((u64)dirent_name_fingerprint(name, name_len) << 32);
+}
+
+#endif