diff --git a/CHANGELOG.rst b/CHANGELOG.rst
index 662f0a50cef..6f89fba9961 100644
--- a/CHANGELOG.rst
+++ b/CHANGELOG.rst
@@ -36,6 +36,8 @@
   Thanks `@bagerard`_ for reporting (`#1503`_). Thanks to `@davehunt`_ and
   `@tomviner`_ for PR.
 
+* Renamed the pytest ``pdb`` module (plugin) into ``debugging``. 
+
 *
 
 * ImportErrors in plugins now are a fatal error instead of issuing a
diff --git a/_pytest/config.py b/_pytest/config.py
index 34416078379..94de8a65907 100644
--- a/_pytest/config.py
+++ b/_pytest/config.py
@@ -63,7 +63,7 @@ class UsageError(Exception):
 _preinit = []
 
 default_plugins = (
-     "mark main terminal runner python pdb unittest capture skipping "
+     "mark main terminal runner python debugging unittest capture skipping "
      "tmpdir monkeypatch recwarn pastebin helpconfig nose assertion genscript "
      "junitxml resultlog doctest cacheprovider").split()
 
diff --git a/_pytest/pdb.py b/_pytest/debugging.py
similarity index 100%
rename from _pytest/pdb.py
rename to _pytest/debugging.py
diff --git a/testing/test_pdb.py b/testing/test_pdb.py
index 6b5d5d5b748..44163a2040f 100644
--- a/testing/test_pdb.py
+++ b/testing/test_pdb.py
@@ -17,7 +17,7 @@ def pytest_funcarg__pdblist(self, request):
         pdblist = []
         def mypdb(*args):
             pdblist.append(args)
-        plugin = request.config.pluginmanager.getplugin('pdb')
+        plugin = request.config.pluginmanager.getplugin('debugging')
         monkeypatch.setattr(plugin, 'post_mortem', mypdb)
         return pdblist