diff --git a/partner_firstname/models/res_partner.py b/partner_firstname/models/res_partner.py
index d576e672932b..e27997841e87 100644
--- a/partner_firstname/models/res_partner.py
+++ b/partner_firstname/models/res_partner.py
@@ -3,12 +3,10 @@
 # © 2014 Agile Business Group (<http://www.agilebg.com>)
 # © 2015 Grupo ESOC (<http://www.grupoesoc.es>)
 # License AGPL-3.0 or later (http://www.gnu.org/licenses/agpl.html).
-
 import logging
 from odoo import api, fields, models
 from .. import exceptions
 
-
 _logger = logging.getLogger(__name__)
 
 
@@ -133,11 +131,20 @@ def _get_whitespace_cleaned_name(self, name, comma=False):
 
         Removes leading, trailing and duplicated whitespace.
         """
-        if name:
-            name = u" ".join(name.split(None))
-            if comma:
-                name = name.replace(" ,", ",")
-                name = name.replace(", ", ",")
+        try:
+            name = u" ".join(name.split()) if name else name
+        except UnicodeDecodeError:
+            # with users coming from LDAP, name can be a str encoded as utf-8
+            # this happens with ActiveDirectory for instance, and in that case
+            # we get a UnicodeDecodeError during the automatic ASCII -> Unicode
+            # conversion that Python does for us.
+            # In that case we need to manually decode the string to get a
+            # proper unicode string.
+            name = u' '.join(name.decode('utf-8').split()) if name else name
+
+        if comma:
+            name = name.replace(" ,", ",")
+            name = name.replace(", ", ",")
         return name
 
     @api.model