Support for some high level ASCII chars can be difficult to achieve, my best suggestion is to use the html entity version of the character when you are entering it into the name and description. This way it should store the entity in the db with the encoding you are using and also display it on the page properly. I found this info with a quick Google search:
Capital Vowels
À À (192)
Á Á (193)
  (194)
à à (195)
É É (201)
Ê Ê (202)
Í Í (205)
Ó Ó (211)
Ô Ô (212)
Õ Õ (213)
Ú Ú (218)
Ü Ü (220)
Lower Vowels
à à (224)
á á (225)
â â (226)
ã ã (227)
é é (233)
ê ê (234)
í í (237)
ó ó (243)
ô ô (244)
õ õ (245)
ú ú (250)
ü ü (252)
Cons/Punct
Ç Ç (199)
ç ç (231)
º º (186)
ª ª (170)
« « (171)
» » (187)
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