diff --git a/src/sqlite/SqliteDatabaseInspection.ts b/src/sqlite/SqliteDatabaseInspection.ts
index a3d9b2c78c..8c973471da 100644
--- a/src/sqlite/SqliteDatabaseInspection.ts
+++ b/src/sqlite/SqliteDatabaseInspection.ts
@@ -124,8 +124,10 @@ const missingSelectedTable = (name: string): SqliteInspectionFailure =>
   );
 // SQLite folds only ASCII letters when matching identifiers. Fold stored
 // bytes so replacement decoding cannot make distinct names share an identity.
+// Latin-1 maps every byte to one code unit without hex expansion. These opaque
+// keys are never returned as text or charged against the JSON reply budget.
 const sqliteNameBytesKey = (name: Uint8Array): string =>
-  Buffer.from(name).toString("hex");
+  Buffer.from(name.buffer, name.byteOffset, name.byteLength).toString("latin1");
 const sqliteIdentifierBytesKey = (
   name: Uint8Array,
   encoding: DatabaseEncoding,
@@ -147,7 +149,7 @@ const sqliteIdentifierBytesKey = (
         bytes[index + asciiOffset] = letter + 0x20;
     }
   }
-  return bytes.toString("hex");
+  return bytes.toString("latin1");
 };
 const sqliteNameBytes = (
   db: DatabaseSync,
@@ -333,14 +335,14 @@ const readSchema = (
     const value = tableRow.parse(raw);
     const nameKey = sqliteNameBytesKey(value.name);
     if (selectedName === undefined) {
-      metadataBudget.retain(nameKey);
+      metadataBudget.retain(value.display_name);
       metadata.set(nameKey, value);
     } else if (nameKey === selectedKey) {
       metadata.set(nameKey, value);
     }
     if (value.type === "virtual" && value.ncol === 0) {
       const virtualName = value.display_name;
-      const prefix = `${sqliteIdentifierBytesKey(value.name, encoding)}${underscore.toString("hex")}`;
+      const prefix = `${sqliteIdentifierBytesKey(value.name, encoding)}${underscore.toString("latin1")}`;
       if (
         selectedKey === undefined ||
         (unresolvedVirtualTables.length === 0 &&
diff --git a/tests/boundary/sqlite/sqliteDatabaseInspection.test.ts b/tests/boundary/sqlite/sqliteDatabaseInspection.test.ts
index f30e311ab1..3062462cb6 100644
--- a/tests/boundary/sqlite/sqliteDatabaseInspection.test.ts
+++ b/tests/boundary/sqlite/sqliteDatabaseInspection.test.ts
@@ -217,26 +217,44 @@ it.each(["UTF-8", "UTF-16le", "UTF-16be"])(
   },
 );
 
-it("counts schema names once when enforcing the complete reply budget", async () => {
-  const names = Array.from(
-    { length: 48 },
-    (_, index) => `${index}_${"x".repeat(128 * 1024)}`,
-  );
-  const path = await createDatabase(
-    names.map((name) => `CREATE TABLE "${name}" (value TEXT);`).join("\n"),
-  );
-  const result = inspectSqliteDatabaseSnapshot(path, {
-    path,
-    schema_scope: "database",
-  });
-  expect(result.schema.tables).toHaveLength(names.length);
-  expect(result.schema.tables.map((table) => table.name)).toEqual(
-    expect.arrayContaining(names),
-  );
-  expect(Buffer.byteLength(JSON.stringify(result))).toBeLessThan(
-    16 * 1024 * 1024,
-  );
-});
+it.each(["UTF-8", "UTF-16le", "UTF-16be"])(
+  "counts returned %s schema names rather than internal lookup keys in the reply budget",
+  async (encoding) => {
+    const names = Array.from(
+      { length: 48 },
+      (_, index) => `${index}_${"x".repeat(128 * 1024)}`,
+    );
+    const path = await createDatabase(
+      `PRAGMA encoding='${encoding}'; BEGIN; ${names
+        .map((name) => `CREATE TABLE "${name}" (value TEXT);`)
+        .join("\n")} COMMIT;`,
+    );
+    for (const schema_scope of ["inventory", "database"] as const) {
+      const result = inspectSqliteDatabaseSnapshot(path, {
+        path,
+        schema_scope,
+      });
+      expect(result.database_encoding).toBe(encoding);
+      expect(result.schema.completeness).toBe("complete");
+      expect(result.schema.tables.map((table) => table.name).sort()).toEqual(
+        [...names].sort(),
+      );
+      for (const table of result.schema.tables)
+        expect(table).toMatchObject(
+          schema_scope === "inventory"
+            ? { columns_completeness: "not_requested", columns: [] }
+            : {
+                sql: `CREATE TABLE "${table.name}" (value TEXT)`,
+                columns_completeness: "complete",
+                columns: [{ name: "value", declared_type: "TEXT" }],
+              },
+        );
+      expect(
+        Buffer.byteLength(JSON.stringify({ ok: true, inspection: result })),
+      ).toBeLessThan(16 * 1024 * 1024);
+    }
+  },
+);
 
 it("keeps unrelated catalog names outside the selected-table reply budget", async () => {
   const path = await createDatabase(