diff --git a/bitchat/Services/MessageFormattingEngine.swift b/bitchat/Services/MessageFormattingEngine.swift
index 88a32e3c..419e9e02 100644
--- a/bitchat/Services/MessageFormattingEngine.swift
+++ b/bitchat/Services/MessageFormattingEngine.swift
@@ -41,7 +41,9 @@ final class MessageFormattingEngine {
     enum Patterns {
         static let hashtag = SafeRegex.compile("#([a-zA-Z0-9_]+)")
 
-        static let mention = SafeRegex.compile("@([\\p{L}0-9_]+(?:#[a-fA-F0-9]{4})?)")
+        // Include \p{M} so NFD nicknames (base letter + combining mark) still
+        // parse as one mention token; NFC forms are covered by \p{L} alone.
+        static let mention = SafeRegex.compile("@([\\p{L}\\p{M}0-9_]+(?:#[a-fA-F0-9]{4})?)")
 
         static let cashu = SafeRegex.compile("\\bcashu[AB][A-Za-z0-9._-]{40,}\\b")
 
diff --git a/bitchat/ViewModels/ChatComposerCoordinator.swift b/bitchat/ViewModels/ChatComposerCoordinator.swift
index 9eb8128b..0e52b3f3 100644
--- a/bitchat/ViewModels/ChatComposerCoordinator.swift
+++ b/bitchat/ViewModels/ChatComposerCoordinator.swift
@@ -116,6 +116,9 @@ final class ChatComposerCoordinator {
     }
 
     func parseMentions(from content: String) -> [String] {
+        // Canonicalize before matching so NFD typed text and NFC peer tokens
+        // share one codepoint sequence (regex also accepts combining marks).
+        let content = content.precomposedStringWithCanonicalMapping
         let regex = ChatViewModel.Patterns.mention
         let nsContent = content as NSString
         let matches = regex.matches(