This is why I hate the (excessively verbose) DOM:

my @sorted = map { $_->[1] }
    sort { $a->[0] cmp $b->[0] }
    map {
        my $item = $nodes->item( $_ );
        [ $item->getAttributeNode( 'name' )->getValue(), $item ]
    } 0 .. $nodes->getLength() ;
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