diff --git a/django/contrib/sessions/backends/signed_cookies.py b/django/contrib/sessions/backends/signed_cookies.py
index 966cbf6e8f..178cc32c93 100644
--- a/django/contrib/sessions/backends/signed_cookies.py
+++ b/django/contrib/sessions/backends/signed_cookies.py
@@ -33,7 +33,7 @@ class SessionStore(SessionBase):
             return signing.loads(self._session_key,
                 serializer=PickleSerializer,
                 max_age=settings.SESSION_COOKIE_AGE,
-                salt='django.contrib.sessions.backends.cookies')
+                salt='django.contrib.sessions.backends.signed_cookies')
         except (signing.BadSignature, ValueError):
             self.create()
         return {}
@@ -89,5 +89,5 @@ class SessionStore(SessionBase):
         """
         session_cache = getattr(self, '_session_cache', {})
         return signing.dumps(session_cache, compress=True,
-            salt='django.contrib.sessions.backends.cookies',
+            salt='django.contrib.sessions.backends.signed_cookies',
             serializer=PickleSerializer)
diff --git a/docs/topics/http/sessions.txt b/docs/topics/http/sessions.txt
index 2997f6fd03..2f13c9662a 100644
--- a/docs/topics/http/sessions.txt
+++ b/docs/topics/http/sessions.txt
@@ -104,7 +104,7 @@ Using cookie-based sessions
 .. versionadded:: 1.4
 
 To use cookies-based sessions, set the :setting:`SESSION_ENGINE` setting to
-``"django.contrib.sessions.backends.cookies"``. The session data will be
+``"django.contrib.sessions.backends.signed_cookies"``. The session data will be
 stored using Django's tools for :doc:`cryptographic signing </topics/signing>`
 and the :setting:`SECRET_KEY` setting.