diff --git a/hg-fast-export.py b/hg-fast-export.py
index e3af8a6..8c88921 100755
--- a/hg-fast-export.py
+++ b/hg-fast-export.py
@@ -141,7 +141,7 @@ def sanitize_name(name,what="branch"):
     return name
 
   n=name
-  p=re.compile('([[ ^:?*]|\.\.)')
+  p=re.compile('([[ ~^:?*]|\.\.)')
   n=p.sub('_', n)
   if n[-1] == '/': n=n[:-1]+'_'
   n='/'.join(map(dot,n.split('/')))