diff --git a/app/team/Team.scala b/app/team/Team.scala
index 4b20992ba6..e6f8e0d7be 100644
--- a/app/team/Team.scala
+++ b/app/team/Team.scala
@@ -3,6 +3,7 @@ package team
 
 import user.User
 
+import ornicar.scalalib.Random
 import org.joda.time.DateTime
 import com.novus.salat.annotations.Key
 import java.text.Normalizer
@@ -44,5 +45,7 @@ object Team {
     createdAt = DateTime.now,
     createdBy = createdBy.id)
 
-  def nameToId(name: String) = templating.StringHelper slugify name
+  def nameToId(name: String) = (templating.StringHelper slugify name) |> { slug ⇒
+    slug.isEmpty.fold(Random nextString 8, slug)
+  }
 }
diff --git a/app/templating/StringHelper.scala b/app/templating/StringHelper.scala
index 03e2573777..24b2c0a6bf 100644
--- a/app/templating/StringHelper.scala
+++ b/app/templating/StringHelper.scala
@@ -12,7 +12,7 @@ object StringHelper extends StringHelper
 trait StringHelper {
 
   def slugify(input: String) = {
-    val nowhitespace = input.replace(" ", "-")
+    val nowhitespace = input.trim.replace(" ", "-")
     val normalized = Normalizer.normalize(nowhitespace, Normalizer.Form.NFD)
     val slug = """[^\w-]""".r.replaceAllIn(normalized, "")
     slug.toLowerCase
diff --git a/todo b/todo
index 94c49b7006..11d873e2e0 100644
--- a/todo
+++ b/todo
@@ -49,3 +49,4 @@ show all join requests
 show join requests in teams list
 kick someone out of a team
 team search
+team forum recent posts is broken