diff --git a/Objects/unicodeobject.c b/Objects/unicodeobject.c
index b57a896..c30245d 100644
--- a/Objects/unicodeobject.c
+++ b/Objects/unicodeobject.c
@@ -5696,7 +5696,8 @@
                     /* found a name.  look it up in the unicode database */
                     message = "unknown Unicode character name";
                     s++;
-                    if (ucnhash_CAPI->getcode(NULL, start, (int)(s-start-1),
+                    if (s - start - 1 <= INT_MAX &&
+                        ucnhash_CAPI->getcode(NULL, start, (int)(s-start-1),
                                               &chr, 0))
                         goto store;
                 }