diff --git a/changelogs/fragments/54123-vmware_guest-string_compat.yml b/changelogs/fragments/54123-vmware_guest-string_compat.yml
new file mode 100644
index 00000000000..0d82ade7e13
--- /dev/null
+++ b/changelogs/fragments/54123-vmware_guest-string_compat.yml
@@ -0,0 +1,2 @@
+minor_changes:
+- vmware_guest now accepts Python 2 and Python 3 compatible string translate method (https://github.com/ansible/ansible/issues/54118).
diff --git a/lib/ansible/modules/cloud/vmware/vmware_guest.py b/lib/ansible/modules/cloud/vmware/vmware_guest.py
index cb1365ea97d..70180d23e9c 100644
--- a/lib/ansible/modules/cloud/vmware/vmware_guest.py
+++ b/lib/ansible/modules/cloud/vmware/vmware_guest.py
@@ -1580,7 +1580,8 @@ class PyVmomiHelper(PyVmomi):
             # Setting hostName, orgName and fullName is mandatory, so we set some default when missing
             ident.userData.computerName = vim.vm.customization.FixedName()
             # computer name will be truncated to 15 characters if using VM name
-            default_name = self.params['name'].translate(None, string.punctuation)
+            default_name = self.params['name'].replace(' ', '')
+            default_name = ''.join([c for c in default_name if c not in string.punctuation])
             ident.userData.computerName.name = str(self.params['customization'].get('hostname', default_name[0:15]))
             ident.userData.fullName = str(self.params['customization'].get('fullname', 'Administrator'))
             ident.userData.orgName = str(self.params['customization'].get('orgname', 'ACME'))