diff --git a/django/conf/global_settings.py b/django/conf/global_settings.py
index 56a4ccb48a..c382d7bf96 100644
--- a/django/conf/global_settings.py
+++ b/django/conf/global_settings.py
@@ -301,4 +301,9 @@ AUTHENTICATION_BACKENDS = ('django.contrib.auth.backends.ModelBackend',)
 # TESTING #
 ###########
 
-TEST_RUNNER='django.test.simple.run_tests'
+# The name of the method to use to invoke the test suite
+TEST_RUNNER = 'django.test.simple.run_tests'
+
+# The name of the database to use for testing purposes.
+# If None, a name of 'test_' + DATABASE_NAME will be assumed
+TEST_DATABASE_NAME = None
diff --git a/django/test/utils.py b/django/test/utils.py
index be011b864c..6d6827918d 100644
--- a/django/test/utils.py
+++ b/django/test/utils.py
@@ -21,7 +21,10 @@ def create_test_db(verbosity=1, autoclobber=False):
     if settings.DATABASE_ENGINE == "sqlite3":
         TEST_DATABASE_NAME = ":memory:"
     else:
-        TEST_DATABASE_NAME = TEST_DATABASE_PREFIX + settings.DATABASE_NAME
+        if settings.TEST_DATABASE_NAME:
+            TEST_DATABASE_NAME = settings.TEST_DATABASE_NAME
+        else:
+            TEST_DATABASE_NAME = TEST_DATABASE_PREFIX + settings.DATABASE_NAME
         
         # Create the test database and connect to it. We need to autocommit
         # if the database supports it because PostgreSQL doesn't allow 
diff --git a/docs/settings.txt b/docs/settings.txt
index 6dabeeb71d..b927b62ca7 100644
--- a/docs/settings.txt
+++ b/docs/settings.txt
@@ -766,6 +766,18 @@ The name of the method to use for starting the test suite. See
 
 .. _Testing Django Applications: ../testing/
 
+TEST_DATABASE_NAME
+------------------
+
+**New in Django development version**
+
+Default: ``None``
+
+The name of database to use when running the test suite. If a value of 
+``None`` is specified, the test database will use the name ``'test_' + settings.DATABASE_NAME``. See `Testing Django Applications`_.
+
+.. _Testing Django Applications: ../testing/
+
 TIME_FORMAT
 -----------
 
diff --git a/docs/testing.txt b/docs/testing.txt
index 1ab3a41ba6..98ed1e8aec 100644
--- a/docs/testing.txt
+++ b/docs/testing.txt
@@ -8,7 +8,7 @@ Automated testing is an extremely useful weapon in the bug-killing arsenal
 of the modern developer. When initially writing code, a test suite can be
 used to validate that code behaves as expected. When refactoring or
 modifying code, tests serve as a guide to ensure that behavior hasn't
-changed as a result of the refactor.
+changed unexpectedly as a result of the refactor.
 
 Testing an web application is a complex task, as there are many
 components of a web application that must be validated and tested. To
@@ -189,10 +189,13 @@ but you only want to run the animals unit tests, run::
 
 When you run your tests, you'll see a bunch of text flow by as the test
 database is created and models are initialized. This test database is
-created from scratch every time you run your tests. The test database
-gets its name by prepending ``test_`` to the database name specified by
-``settings.DATABASE_NAME``; all other database settings will the same as
-they would be for the project normally.
+created from scratch every time you run your tests. 
+
+By default, the test database gets its name by prepending ``test_`` to 
+the database name specified by the ``DATABASE_NAME`` setting; all other 
+database settings will the same as they would be for the project normally.
+If you wish to use a name other than the default for the test database, 
+you can use the ``TEST_DATABASE_NAME`` setting to provide a name. 
 
 Once the test database has been established, Django will run your tests.
 If everything goes well, at the end you'll see::
@@ -265,8 +268,8 @@ arguments:
 The module list is the list of Python modules that contain the models to be
 tested. This is the same format returned by ``django.db.models.get_apps()``
 
-Verbosity determines the amount of debug information that will be
-provided to the console; '0' is no output, '1' is normal output,
+Verbosity determines the amount of notification and debug information that 
+will be printed to the console; '0' is no output, '1' is normal output,
 and `2` is verbose output.
 
 Testing utilities
diff --git a/tests/runtests.py b/tests/runtests.py
index 57087ef3a7..95ec237ee4 100755
--- a/tests/runtests.py
+++ b/tests/runtests.py
@@ -5,6 +5,7 @@ import unittest
 
 MODEL_TESTS_DIR_NAME = 'modeltests'
 REGRESSION_TESTS_DIR_NAME = 'regressiontests'
+TEST_DATABASE_NAME = 'django_test_db'
 
 MODEL_TEST_DIR = os.path.join(os.path.dirname(__file__), MODEL_TESTS_DIR_NAME)
 REGRESSION_TEST_DIR = os.path.join(os.path.dirname(__file__), REGRESSION_TESTS_DIR_NAME)
@@ -71,9 +72,12 @@ def django_tests(verbosity, tests_to_run):
     from django.conf import settings
     from django.db.models.loading import get_apps, load_app
     old_installed_apps = settings.INSTALLED_APPS
+    old_test_database_name = settings.TEST_DATABASE_NAME
     
-    # load all the ALWAYS_INSTALLED_APPS
+    settings.TEST_DATABASE_NAME = TEST_DATABASE_NAME
     settings.INSTALLED_APPS = ALWAYS_INSTALLED_APPS
+
+    # load all the ALWAYS_INSTALLED_APPS
     get_apps()
     
     test_models = []
@@ -105,9 +109,9 @@ def django_tests(verbosity, tests_to_run):
     from django.test.simple import run_tests
     run_tests(test_models, verbosity, extra_tests=extra_tests)
   
-    # Restore the old INSTALLED_APPS setting
+    # Restore the old settings
     settings.INSTALLED_APPS = old_installed_apps
-      
+    settings.TESTS_DATABASE_NAME = old_test_database_name
 if __name__ == "__main__":
     from optparse import OptionParser
     usage = "%prog [options] [model model model ...]"