diff --git a/packageurl.go b/packageurl.go
index dc86d25..5801c51 100644
--- a/packageurl.go
+++ b/packageurl.go
@@ -200,18 +200,23 @@ func (p *PackageURL) ToString() string {
 		Fragment: p.Subpath,
 	}
 
-	nameWithVersion := url.PathEscape(p.Name)
+	paths := []string{p.Type}
+	// we need to escape each segment by itself, so that we don't escape "/" in the namespace.
+	for _, segment := range strings.Split(p.Namespace, "/") {
+		if segment == "" {
+			continue
+		}
+		paths = append(paths, escape(segment))
+	}
+
+	nameWithVersion := escape(p.Name)
 	if p.Version != "" {
-		nameWithVersion += "@" + p.Version
+		nameWithVersion += "@" + escape(p.Version)
 	}
 
-	// we use JoinPath and EscapedPath as the behavior for "/" is only correct with that.
-	// We don't want to escape "/", but want to escape all other characters that are necessary.
-	u = u.JoinPath(p.Type, p.Namespace, nameWithVersion)
-	// write the actual path into the "Opaque" block, so that the generated string at the end is
-	// pkg:<path> and not pkg://<path>.
-	u.Opaque, u.Path = u.EscapedPath(), ""
+	paths = append(paths, nameWithVersion)
 
+	u.Opaque = strings.Join(paths, "/")
 	return u.String()
 }
 
@@ -263,6 +268,44 @@ func FromString(purl string) (PackageURL, error) {
 	return pURL, validCustomRules(pURL)
 }
 
+// escape the given string in a purl-compatible way.
+func escape(s string) string {
+	// for compatibility with other implementations and the purl-spec, we want to escape all
+	// characters, which is what "QueryEscape" does. The issue with QueryEscape is that it encodes
+	// " " (space) as "+", which is valid in a query, but invalid in a path (see
+	// https://stackoverflow.com/questions/2678551/when-should-space-be-encoded-to-plus-or-20) for
+	// context).
+	// To work around that, we replace the "+" signs with the path-compatible "%20".
+	return strings.ReplaceAll(url.QueryEscape(s), "+", "%20")
+}
+
+func getQualifiers(rawQuery string) (url.Values, error) {
+	qualifiers, err := url.ParseQuery(rawQuery)
+	if err != nil {
+		return nil, fmt.Errorf("could not parse qualifiers: %w", err)
+	}
+
+	for k := range qualifiers {
+		if !validQualifierKey(k) {
+			return nil, fmt.Errorf("invalid qualifier key: %q", k)
+		}
+
+		v := qualifiers.Get(k)
+		// only the first character needs to be lowercased. Note that pURL is alwyas UTF8, so we
+		// don't need to care about unicode here.
+		normalisedValue := strings.ToLower(v[:1]) + v[1:]
+
+		if normalisedKey := strings.ToLower(k); normalisedKey != k {
+			qualifiers.Del(k)
+			qualifiers.Set(normalisedKey, normalisedValue)
+		} else if normalisedValue != v {
+			qualifiers.Set(k, normalisedValue)
+		}
+	}
+
+	return qualifiers, nil
+}
+
 func separateNamespaceNameVersion(path string) (ns, name, version string, err error) {
 	name = path
 
diff --git a/packageurl_test.go b/packageurl_test.go
index 2aac09c..4423c72 100644
--- a/packageurl_test.go
+++ b/packageurl_test.go
@@ -302,12 +302,12 @@ func TestQualifiersMapConversion(t *testing.T) {
 
 func TestNameEscaping(t *testing.T) {
 	testCases := map[string]string{
-		"abc":  "pkg:abc",
-		"ab/c": "pkg:ab%2Fc",
+		"abc":  "pkg:deb/abc",
+		"ab/c": "pkg:deb/ab%2Fc",
 	}
 	for name, output := range testCases {
 		t.Run(name, func(t *testing.T) {
-			p := &packageurl.PackageURL{Name: name}
+			p := &packageurl.PackageURL{Type: "deb", Name: name}
 			if s := p.ToString(); s != output {
 				t.Fatalf("wrong escape. expected=%q, got=%q", output, s)
 			}