diff --git a/swift/common/db.py b/swift/common/db.py
index 69466a1a15..3245ffcbf2 100644
--- a/swift/common/db.py
+++ b/swift/common/db.py
@@ -47,6 +47,10 @@ PICKLE_PROTOCOL = 2
 PENDING_CAP = 131072
 
 
+def utf8encode(*args):
+    return [(s.encode('utf8') if isinstance(s, unicode) else s) for s in args]
+
+
 class DatabaseConnectionError(sqlite3.DatabaseError):
     """More friendly error messages for DB Errors."""
 
@@ -1062,6 +1066,8 @@ class ContainerBroker(DatabaseBroker):
         :returns: list of tuples of (name, created_at, size, content_type,
                   etag)
         """
+        (marker, end_marker, prefix, delimiter, path) = utf8encode(
+            marker, end_marker, prefix, delimiter, path)
         try:
             self._commit_puts()
         except LockTimeout:
@@ -1102,8 +1108,6 @@ class ContainerBroker(DatabaseBroker):
                 if prefix is None:
                     return [r for r in curs]
                 if not delimiter:
-                    if isinstance(prefix, unicode):
-                        prefix = prefix.encode("utf-8")
                     return [r for r in curs if r[0].startswith(prefix)]
                 rowcount = 0
                 for row in curs:
@@ -1557,6 +1561,8 @@ class AccountBroker(DatabaseBroker):
 
         :returns: list of tuples of (name, object_count, bytes_used, 0)
         """
+        (marker, end_marker, prefix, delimiter) = utf8encode(
+            marker, end_marker, prefix, delimiter)
         try:
             self._commit_puts()
         except LockTimeout: