diff --git a/ChangeLog.md b/ChangeLog.md
index ffbe23ccb3f95..05d25fe02c842 100644
--- a/ChangeLog.md
+++ b/ChangeLog.md
@@ -20,6 +20,11 @@ See docs/process.md for more on how version tagging works.
 
 3.1.75 (in development)
 -----------------------
+- `PATH.basename()` no longer calls `PATH.normalize()`, so that
+  `PATH.basename("a/.")` returns `"."` instead of `"a"` and
+  `PATH.basename("a/b/..")` returns `".."` instead of `"a"`. This is in line with
+  the behaviour of both node and coreutils, and is already the case when using
+  NODERAWFS". (#23180)
 
 3.1.74 - 12/14/24
 -----------------
diff --git a/src/library_path.js b/src/library_path.js
index ab3112503a202..fd5fec3dc2c46 100644
--- a/src/library_path.js
+++ b/src/library_path.js
@@ -64,10 +64,9 @@ addToLibrary({
       return root + dir;
     },
     basename: (path) => {
-      // EMSCRIPTEN return '/'' for '/', not an empty string
+      // EMSCRIPTEN return '/' for '/', not an empty string
       if (path === '/') return '/';
-      path = PATH.normalize(path);
-      path = path.replace(/\/$/, "");
+      path = path.replace(/\/+$/g, "");
       var lastSlash = path.lastIndexOf('/');
       if (lastSlash === -1) return path;
       return path.substr(lastSlash+1);