diff --git a/src/sphinx_ext_mystmd/builder.py b/src/sphinx_ext_mystmd/builder.py
index b35eb41..1d84d16 100644
--- a/src/sphinx_ext_mystmd/builder.py
+++ b/src/sphinx_ext_mystmd/builder.py
@@ -7,7 +7,7 @@
 import hashlib
 
 from .transform import MySTNodeVisitor
-from .utils import to_text, find_by_type, breadth_first_walk
+from .utils import to_text, find_by_type, breadth_first_walk, title_to_name
 
 
 logger = logging.getLogger(__name__)
@@ -17,7 +17,8 @@ class MySTBuilder(Builder):
     name = "myst"
 
     def _slugify(self, path):
-        return path.replace("/", "-")
+        name = os.path.basename(path)
+        return title_to_name(name)
 
     def _get_xref_path(self, doc_name):
         target_stem = self._slugify(doc_name)
diff --git a/src/sphinx_ext_mystmd/transform.py b/src/sphinx_ext_mystmd/transform.py
index c02c986..701d394 100644
--- a/src/sphinx_ext_mystmd/transform.py
+++ b/src/sphinx_ext_mystmd/transform.py
@@ -5,7 +5,7 @@
 from sphinx.util import logging
 
 
-from .utils import normalize_label
+from .utils import normalize_label   
 
 
 logger = logging.getLogger(__name__)
diff --git a/src/sphinx_ext_mystmd/utils.py b/src/sphinx_ext_mystmd/utils.py
index 639e63b..9816cba 100644
--- a/src/sphinx_ext_mystmd/utils.py
+++ b/src/sphinx_ext_mystmd/utils.py
@@ -2,6 +2,23 @@
 import collections
 
 
+def title_to_name(title):
+    return input_to_name(title.replace("&", "¶and¶"), re.compile(r"[a-z0-9-]"), "-")[:50]
+
+
+def input_to_name(input_, allowed, join):
+    escaped = ''.join([c if allowed.search(c) else '¶' for c in f"¶{input_}".lower()])
+    unique = re.sub(r"¶+", "¶", escaped)
+    name = re.sub("¶", join, unique[1:])
+    if join:
+        name = re.sub(f"{join}+", join, name)
+    if name[0] == join:
+        name = name[1:]
+    if name[-1] == join:
+        name = name[:-1]
+    return name
+
+
 def normalize_label(
     label,
 ):