diff --git a/src/d_netcmd.c b/src/d_netcmd.c
index f5d5fd5b8..472e0cdd6 100644
--- a/src/d_netcmd.c
+++ b/src/d_netcmd.c
@@ -602,11 +602,11 @@ static boolean AllowedPlayerNameChar(char ch)
 
 boolean EnsurePlayerNameIsGood(char *name, INT32 playernum)
 {
-	INT32 ix;
+	size_t ix, len = strlen(name);
 
-	if (strlen(name) == 0 || strlen(name) > MAXPLAYERNAME)
+	if (len == 0 || len > MAXPLAYERNAME)
 		return false; // Empty or too long.
-	if (name[0] == ' ' || name[strlen(name)-1] == ' ')
+	if (name[0] == ' ' || name[len-1] == ' ')
 		return false; // Starts or ends with a space.
 	if (isdigit(name[0]))
 		return false; // Starts with a digit.
@@ -620,20 +620,19 @@ boolean EnsurePlayerNameIsGood(char *name, INT32 playernum)
 
 	// Also, anything over 0x80 is disallowed too, since compilers love to
 	// differ on whether they're printable characters or not.
-	for (ix = 0; name[ix] != '\0'; ix++)
+	for (ix = 0; ix < len; ix++)
 		if (!AllowedPlayerNameChar(name[ix]))
 			return false;
 
 	// Check if a player is currently using the name, case-insensitively.
 	for (ix = 0; ix < MAXPLAYERS; ix++)
 	{
-		if (ix != playernum && playeringame[ix]
+		if (ix != (size_t)playernum && playeringame[ix]
 			&& strcasecmp(name, player_names[ix]) == 0)
 		{
 			// We shouldn't kick people out just because
 			// they joined the game with the same name
 			// as someone else -- modify the name instead.
-			size_t len = strlen(name);
 
 			// Recursion!
 			// Slowly strip characters off the end of the
@@ -647,7 +646,7 @@ boolean EnsurePlayerNameIsGood(char *name, INT32 playernum)
 			else if (len == 1) // Agh!
 			{
 				// Last ditch effort...
-				sprintf(name, "%d", M_RandomKey(10));
+				sprintf(name, "%d", 'A' + M_RandomKey(26));
 				if (!EnsurePlayerNameIsGood (name, playernum))
 					return false;
 			}