diff --git a/NEWS b/NEWS
index cabb3a2c..501cfee3 100644
--- a/NEWS
+++ b/NEWS
@@ -1,4 +1,4 @@
-GNU tar NEWS - User visible changes. 2026-03-12
+GNU tar NEWS - User visible changes. 2026-04-04
 Please send GNU tar bug reports to <bug-tar@gnu.org>
 
 version 1.35.90 (git)
@@ -43,6 +43,10 @@ option.
 ** When extracting, tar no longer follows symbolic links to targets
    outside the working directory.
 
+** When extracting from an incremental dump, tar now strips leading '/'
+   from names of temporary directories specified by 'X' entries,
+   unless --absolute-names (-P) is used.
+
 ** Fixed O(n^2) time complexity bug for large numbers of directories when
    extracting with --delay-directory-restore or reading incremental archives.
 
diff --git a/THANKS b/THANKS
index f908c1b0..8c5c99d9 100644
--- a/THANKS
+++ b/THANKS
@@ -333,6 +333,7 @@ Marc Boucher		marc@cam.org
 Marc Espie		marc.espie.openbsd@gmail.com
 Marc Ewing		marc@redhat.com
 Marcin Matuszewski	marcin@frodo.nask.org.pl
+Marcin Wyczechowski	mwyczechowski@afine.com
 Marcus Daniels		marcus@sysc.pdx.edu
 Mark Bynum		bynum@cennas.nhmfl.gov
 Mark Clements		mpc@mbsmm.com
@@ -370,6 +371,7 @@ Michael Schmidt		michael@muc.de
 Michael Schwingen	m.schwingen@stochastik.rwth-aachen.de
 Michael Smolsky		fnsiguc@astro.weizmann.ac.il
 Michal Žejdl		zejdl@suas.cz
+Michał Majchrowicz	mmajchrowicz@afine.com
 Mike Muuss		mike@brl.mil
 Mike Nolan		nolan@lpl.arizona.edu
 Mike Rogers		mike@demon.net
diff --git a/gnulib.modules b/gnulib.modules
index 52b89137..17ef44fd 100644
--- a/gnulib.modules
+++ b/gnulib.modules
@@ -78,6 +78,7 @@ localcharset
 manywarnings
 mbrtoc32-regular
 mcel-prefer
+mempcpy
 mkdirat
 mkdtemp
 mkfifoat
diff --git a/src/incremen.c b/src/incremen.c
index 6be07193..713dcd51 100644
--- a/src/incremen.c
+++ b/src/incremen.c
@@ -1649,11 +1649,12 @@ purge_directory (char const *directory_name)
       if (*arc == 'X')
 	{
 	  static char const TEMP_DIR_TEMPLATE[] = "tar.XXXXXX";
-	  idx_t len = strlen (arc + 1);
+	  char *d = safer_name_suffix (arc + 1, false, absolute_names_option);
+	  idx_t len = strlen (d);
 	  temp_stub = xrealloc (temp_stub, len + 1 + sizeof TEMP_DIR_TEMPLATE);
-	  memcpy (temp_stub, arc + 1, len);
-	  temp_stub[len] = '/';
-	  memcpy (temp_stub + len + 1, TEMP_DIR_TEMPLATE,
+	  char *copy_end = mempcpy (temp_stub, d, len);
+	  *copy_end = '/';
+	  memcpy (copy_end + !ISSLASH (copy_end[-1]), TEMP_DIR_TEMPLATE,
 		  sizeof TEMP_DIR_TEMPLATE);
 	  if (!mkdtemp (temp_stub))
 	    {