diff --git a/kmod/src/dir.c b/kmod/src/dir.c
index 12cd42ab..a84d2134 100644
--- a/kmod/src/dir.c
+++ b/kmod/src/dir.c
@@ -213,12 +213,44 @@ static struct scoutfs_dirent *alloc_dirent(unsigned int name_len)
 	return kmalloc(dirent_bytes(name_len), GFP_NOFS);
 }
 
+/*
+ * 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 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 u64 dirent_name_hash(const char *name, unsigned int name_len)
 {
-       unsigned int half = (name_len + 1) / 2;
-
-       return crc32c(~0, name, half) |
-              ((u64)crc32c(~0, name + name_len - half, half) << 32);
+       return crc32c(~0, name, name_len) |
+              ((u64)dirent_name_fingerprint(name, name_len) << 32);
 }
 
 static u64 dirent_names_equal(const char *a_name, unsigned int a_len,