diff --git a/libctf/ctf-open.c b/libctf/ctf-open.c
index 3ba78c89426..56b1084a6d6 100644
--- a/libctf/ctf-open.c
+++ b/libctf/ctf-open.c
@@ -364,7 +364,12 @@ ctf_set_base (ctf_dict_t *fp, const ctf_header_t *hp, unsigned char *base)
 
   /* Note: before conversion, these will be set to values that will be
      immediately invalidated by the conversion process, but the conversion
-     process will call ctf_set_base() again to fix things up.  */
+     process will call ctf_set_base() again to fix things up.
+
+     These labels are explicitly constrained from being deduplicated (even though
+     .ctf is usually a duplicated name), because they are the key to identifying
+     the parent dict (and determining that this dict is a child) in the first
+     place.  */
 
   if (hp->cth_parlabel != 0)
     fp->ctf_parlabel = ctf_strptr (fp, hp->cth_parlabel);
diff --git a/libctf/ctf-serialize.c b/libctf/ctf-serialize.c
index 19ab8abf63e..52ae41d33ef 100644
--- a/libctf/ctf-serialize.c
+++ b/libctf/ctf-serialize.c
@@ -1048,9 +1048,9 @@ ctf_preserialize (ctf_dict_t *fp)
 
   hdrp = (ctf_header_t *) buf;
   if ((fp->ctf_flags & LCTF_CHILD) && (fp->ctf_parname != NULL))
-    ctf_str_add_ref (fp, fp->ctf_parname, &hdrp->cth_parname);
+    ctf_str_add_no_dedup_ref (fp, fp->ctf_parname, &hdrp->cth_parname);
   if (fp->ctf_cuname != NULL)
-    ctf_str_add_ref (fp, fp->ctf_cuname, &hdrp->cth_cuname);
+    ctf_str_add_no_dedup_ref (fp, fp->ctf_cuname, &hdrp->cth_cuname);
 
   if (ctf_emit_symtypetab_sects (fp, &symstate, &t, objt_size, func_size,
 				 objtidx_size, funcidx_size) < 0)
diff --git a/libctf/ctf-string.c b/libctf/ctf-string.c
index dc72555c38f..f171f12b494 100644
--- a/libctf/ctf-string.c
+++ b/libctf/ctf-string.c
@@ -202,7 +202,9 @@ ctf_str_free_atom (void *a)
    pulled in.)
 
    Note that the *final strtab* may be entirely empty, if all its strings are
-   shared with the parent: the atoms table is a superset.  */
+   shared with the parent: the atoms table is a superset.  (But this will never
+   happen in practice, because some header fields are explicitly never
+   deduplicated.)  */
 int
 ctf_str_create_atoms (ctf_dict_t *fp)
 {