diff --git a/icu4c/source/i18n/translit.cpp b/icu4c/source/i18n/translit.cpp
index 874bff9933..3964a20114 100644
--- a/icu4c/source/i18n/translit.cpp
+++ b/icu4c/source/i18n/translit.cpp
@@ -1463,7 +1463,7 @@ UBool Transliterator::initializeRegistry() {
         for (row = 0; row < maxRows; row++) {
             colBund = ures_getByIndex(transIDs, row, 0, &status);
             if (U_SUCCESS(status)) {
-                UnicodeString id(ures_getKey(colBund));
+                UnicodeString id(ures_getKey(colBund), -1, US_INV);
                 UResourceBundle* res = ures_getNextResource(colBund, NULL, &status);
                 const char* typeStr = ures_getKey(res);
                 UChar type;
diff --git a/icu4c/source/i18n/transreg.cpp b/icu4c/source/i18n/transreg.cpp
index 781ea87a60..31d534b2a3 100644
--- a/icu4c/source/i18n/transreg.cpp
+++ b/icu4c/source/i18n/transreg.cpp
@@ -218,7 +218,7 @@ Spec::Spec(const UnicodeString& theSpec) : top(theSpec) {
     UScriptCode script[capacity]={USCRIPT_INVALID_CODE};
     int32_t num = uscript_getCode(topch,script,capacity, &status);
     if (num > 0 && script[0] != USCRIPT_INVALID_CODE) {
-        scriptName = UnicodeString(uscript_getName(script[0]), "");
+        scriptName = UnicodeString(uscript_getName(script[0]), -1, US_INV);
     }
 
     // Canonicalize top
diff --git a/icu4c/source/i18n/uni2name.cpp b/icu4c/source/i18n/uni2name.cpp
index 648e466c3e..dcc49d758f 100644
--- a/icu4c/source/i18n/uni2name.cpp
+++ b/icu4c/source/i18n/uni2name.cpp
@@ -98,7 +98,7 @@ void UnicodeNameTransliterator::handleTransliterate(Replaceable& text, UTransPos
         status = U_ZERO_ERROR;
         if ((len = u_charName(c, U_EXTENDED_CHAR_NAME, buf, maxLen, &status)) >0 && !U_FAILURE(status)) {
             str.truncate(OPEN_DELIM_LEN);
-            str.append(UnicodeString(buf, len, "")).append(CLOSE_DELIM);
+            str.append(UnicodeString(buf, len, US_INV)).append(CLOSE_DELIM);
             text.handleReplaceBetween(cursor, cursor+clen, str);
             len += OPEN_DELIM_LEN + 1; // adjust for delimiters
             cursor += len; // advance cursor and adjust for new text