diff --git a/cassandra/decoder.py b/cassandra/decoder.py
index cae88957..5e770fb5 100644
--- a/cassandra/decoder.py
+++ b/cassandra/decoder.py
@@ -1,31 +1,17 @@
-# Licensed to the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) under one
-# or more contributor license agreements.  See the NOTICE file
-# distributed with this work for additional information
-# regarding copyright ownership.  The ASF licenses this file
-# to you under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the
-# "License"); you may not use this file except in compliance
-# with the License.  You may obtain a copy of the License at
-#
-#     http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
-#
-# Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
-# distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
-# WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
-# See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
-# limitations under the License.
-
 from binascii import hexlify
 from collections import namedtuple
+import datetime
+import logging
+import re
+import socket
+import types
+from uuid import UUID
+
 try:
     from collections import OrderedDict
 except ImportError:  # Python <2.7
     from cassandra.util import OrderedDict # NOQA
 
-import datetime
-import logging
-import socket
-import types
-from uuid import UUID
 try:
     from cStringIO import StringIO
 except ImportError:
@@ -60,12 +46,20 @@ HEADER_DIRECTION_TO_CLIENT = 0x80
 HEADER_DIRECTION_MASK = 0x80
 
 
+NON_ALPHA_REGEX = re.compile('\W')
+END_UNDERSCORE_REGEX = re.compile('^_*(\w*[a-zA-Z0-9])_*$')
+
+
+def _clean_column_name(name):
+    return END_UNDERSCORE_REGEX.sub("\g<1>", NON_ALPHA_REGEX.sub("_", name))
+
+
 def tuple_factory(colnames, rows):
     return rows
 
 
 def named_tuple_factory(colnames, rows):
-    Row = namedtuple('Row', colnames)
+    Row = namedtuple('Row', map(_clean_column_name, colnames))
     return [Row(*row) for row in rows]
 
 
diff --git a/tests/unit/test_types.py b/tests/unit/test_types.py
index 0a781e74..2c65131a 100644
--- a/tests/unit/test_types.py
+++ b/tests/unit/test_types.py
@@ -1,10 +1,9 @@
 import unittest
 import datetime
 import cassandra
-from cassandra.cqltypes import CassandraType, BooleanType, lookup_casstype_simple, lookup_casstype, \
-    AsciiType, LongType, DecimalType, DoubleType, FloatType, Int32Type, UTF8Type, IntegerType, SetType, cql_typename
-
-from cassandra.cluster import Cluster
+from cassandra.cqltypes import (BooleanType, lookup_casstype_simple, lookup_casstype,
+                                LongType, DecimalType, SetType, cql_typename)
+from cassandra.decoder import named_tuple_factory
 
 
 class TypeTests(unittest.TestCase):
@@ -105,3 +104,12 @@ class TypeTests(unittest.TestCase):
 
         self.assertEqual(cql_typename('DateType'), 'timestamp')
         self.assertEqual(cql_typename('org.apache.cassandra.db.marshal.ListType(IntegerType)'), 'list<varint>')
+
+    def test_named_tuple_colname_substitution(self):
+        colnames = ("func(abc)", "[applied]", "func(func(abc))", "foo_bar")
+        rows = [(1, 2, 3, 4)]
+        result = named_tuple_factory(colnames, rows)[0]
+        self.assertEqual(result[0], result.func_abc)
+        self.assertEqual(result[1], result.applied)
+        self.assertEqual(result[2], result.func_func_abc)
+        self.assertEqual(result[3], result.foo_bar)