diff --git a/helper/diffPlaces.js b/helper/diffPlaces.js
index c9c7ea5ab..0a3c195b7 100644
--- a/helper/diffPlaces.js
+++ b/helper/diffPlaces.js
@@ -386,7 +386,7 @@ function layerDependentNormalization(names, layer) {
  * lowercase characters and remove diacritics and some punctuation
  */
 function normalizeString(str){
-  return removeAccents(unicode.normalize(str)).toLowerCase().split(/[ ,-]+/).join(' ');
+  return removeAccents(unicode.normalize(str)).toLowerCase().split(/[ ,-.]+/).join(' ');
 }
 
 module.exports.isDifferent = isDifferent;
diff --git a/test/unit/helper/diffPlaces.js b/test/unit/helper/diffPlaces.js
index 4e095440c..42bc673ec 100644
--- a/test/unit/helper/diffPlaces.js
+++ b/test/unit/helper/diffPlaces.js
@@ -737,6 +737,7 @@ module.exports.tests.normalizeString = function (test, common) {
     t.equal(normalizeString('foo, bar'), 'foo bar');
     t.equal(normalizeString('foo-bar'), 'foo bar');
     t.equal(normalizeString('foo , - , - bar'), 'foo bar');
+    t.equal(normalizeString('St. Marks'), 'st marks');
     t.end();
   });