diff --git a/Sources/HTMLStreamer/Tokenizer.swift b/Sources/HTMLStreamer/Tokenizer.swift
index dfc0e5b..0c02684 100644
--- a/Sources/HTMLStreamer/Tokenizer.swift
+++ b/Sources/HTMLStreamer/Tokenizer.swift
@@ -349,54 +349,56 @@ private extension Tokenizer {
     }
     
     mutating func tokenizeNamedCharaterReference() -> Token? {
-        // TODO: this could definitely be faster
-        // maybe with a prefix tree for named characters
-        var everHadMatch = false
-        var outOfChars = false
-        func hasMatch() -> Bool {
+        // consume as many [a-zA-Z0-9] as possible, until semicolon
+        loop: while let c = nextChar() {
+            switch c {
+            case "a"..."z", "A"..."Z", "0"..."9":
+                temporaryBuffer!.append(c)
+            case ";":
+                temporaryBuffer!.append(c)
+                break loop
+            default:
+                reconsume(c)
+                break loop
+            }
+        }
+        
+        var referent = namedCharactersDecodeMap[String(temporaryBuffer!.dropFirst())]
+        if referent == nil {
+            // start from the beginning and try to find a reference
+            var key = ";"
             let buf = temporaryBuffer!
-            let key = buf[buf.index(after: buf.startIndex)...]
-            return namedCharactersDecodeMap.keys.contains(where: { $0.starts(with: key) })
-        }
-        while hasMatch() {
-            everHadMatch = true
-            guard let char = nextChar() else {
-                outOfChars = true
-                break
+            var index = buf.index(after: buf.startIndex)
+            while index < buf.endIndex {
+                key.replaceSubrange(key.index(before: key.endIndex)..., with: "\(buf[index]);")
+                buf.formIndex(after: &index)
+                referent = namedCharactersDecodeMap[key]
+                if referent != nil {
+                    break
+                }
             }
-            temporaryBuffer!.append(char)
-        }
-        if everHadMatch {
-            if !outOfChars {
-                // the last character changed us from having a match to not
-                reconsume(temporaryBuffer!.removeLast())
+            if referent != nil {
+                for c in buf[index...].reversed() {
+                    reconsume(c)
+                }
+                temporaryBuffer!.removeSubrange(index...)
             }
-            
+        }
+        
+        if let referent {
             if case .attributeValue(_) = returnState,
                temporaryBuffer!.last != ";",
-               let peeked = peekChar(),
-               peeked == "=" || (peeked.isASCII && (peeked.isLetter || peeked.isNumber)) {
-                state = .flushingTemporaryBuffer(returnState!)
+               let next = peekChar(),
+               next == "=" || ("a"..."z").contains(next) || ("A"..."Z").contains(next) || ("0"..."9").contains(next) {
+                flushCharacterReference()
             } else {
-                let insertSemicolon = temporaryBuffer!.last != ";"
-                if insertSemicolon {
-                    // parse error: missing-semicolon-after-character-reference
-                    // Usually the parser behaves as if character reference is terminated by the U+003B (;) code point; however, there are some ambiguous cases in which the parser includes subsequent code points in the character reference.
-                    temporaryBuffer!.append(";")
-                }
-                if let reference = namedCharactersDecodeMap[String(temporaryBuffer![temporaryBuffer!.index(after: temporaryBuffer!.startIndex)...])] {
-                    temporaryBuffer = "\(reference)"
-                    flushCharacterReference()
-                } else {
-                    if insertSemicolon {
-                        temporaryBuffer!.removeLast()
-                    }
-                    state = .flushingTemporaryBuffer(.ambiguousAmpersand)
-                }
+                temporaryBuffer = "\(referent)"
+                flushCharacterReference()
             }
         } else {
             state = .flushingTemporaryBuffer(.ambiguousAmpersand)
         }
+        
         return next()
     }
     
diff --git a/Tests/HTMLStreamerTests/TokenizerTests.swift b/Tests/HTMLStreamerTests/TokenizerTests.swift
index dd6b6dd..0153735 100644
--- a/Tests/HTMLStreamerTests/TokenizerTests.swift
+++ b/Tests/HTMLStreamerTests/TokenizerTests.swift
@@ -20,9 +20,14 @@ final class TokenizerTests: XCTestCase {
         XCTAssertEqual(tokenize("&amp;"), [.character("&")])
         // missing-semicolon-after-character-reference:
         XCTAssertEqual(tokenize("&not;in"), [.character("¬"), .character("i"), .character("n")])
-        XCTAssertEqual(tokenize("&notin"), [.character("∉")])
+        XCTAssertEqual(tokenize("&notin"), [.character("¬"), .character("i"), .character("n")])
         // unknown-named-character-reference:
+        XCTAssertEqual(tokenize("&notit;"), [.character("¬"), .character("i"), .character("t"), .character(";")])
         XCTAssertEqual(tokenize("&asdf"), "&asdf".map { .character($0) })
+        XCTAssertEqual(tokenize("&a"), "&a".map { .character($0) })
+        
+        // attribute special case
+        XCTAssertEqual(tokenize("<a a='&nota' />"), [.startTag("a", selfClosing: true, attributes: [Attribute(name: "a", value: "&nota")])])
     }
     
     func testNumericCharacterReference() {