diff --git a/onnxscript/backend/onnx_export.py b/onnxscript/backend/onnx_export.py
index 94e673be6..87e2c01ab 100644
--- a/onnxscript/backend/onnx_export.py
+++ b/onnxscript/backend/onnx_export.py
@@ -152,7 +152,10 @@ def _translate_value_info(value_info: ValueInfoProto) -> str:
 
 def _to_str(s):
     if isinstance(s, bytes):
-        return s.decode("utf-8")
+        try:
+            return s.decode("utf-8")
+        except UnicodeDecodeError:
+            return s.decode("latin1")  # or "cp1252" or other fallback
     return s