import re
re.sub('&([^;]+);', r'&.\1.;', 'sdsfjsdlflsdfsdf&asdasd;dfsdfgsfdgfsd&dsfdsaf; &sfgfdgds;')
import htmlentitydefs
result = []
for x in a:
    n = htmlentitydefs.codepoint2name.get(ord(x))
    if n is not None: x = '&%s;' % n
    result.append(x)