> > In Emacs 24.3, typing C-x 8 RET bell RET
> > results in character #x1f541 being inserted (which on my system is
> > displayed as a box with text 01F 514 inside).
> >
> > I would expect the command to insert character #x7 (ASCII BEL
> > character, C-g) instead
> 
> That's because U+1F541 has "BELL" as its 'name' property, whereas
> u+0007 has "BELL" as its 'old-name' property.  Emacs completion picks
> only one from these 2 duplicate candidates.
> 
> Perhaps some completion guru could find a way to allow multiple
> candidates with the same name in this case.

FWIW, this is the case with Icicles. See the attached screenshots,
which show, as candidates whose names match the minibuffer input
`bell', seven candidates for substring matching (`S-TAB') and four
candidates for prefix matching (`TAB'). You can see that two of the
chars have exactly the same name, `BELL', with Unicode code points
1F514 and 7.

You can choose a candidate (e.g. the one with code point 7) by
clicking it with the mouse or cycling to it and hitting `RET'.

(The actual chars are also shown, following the code points, but
the default font displays most of these chars as boxes enclosing
the code point).