diff --git a/docs/promtail.md b/docs/promtail.md
index ff8b3bc9cc5c89e6f4dfb0b02ae1d5e2453edaeb..2b0e5dffc030779848bf7daf540dcf39ae953a21 100644
--- a/docs/promtail.md
+++ b/docs/promtail.md
@@ -32,7 +32,8 @@ The term "label" here is used in more than one different way and they can be eas
   will have a label \_\_meta_kubernetes_pod_label_name with value set to "foobar".
 * There are other \_\_meta_kubernetes_* labels based on the Kubernetes metadadata, such as the namespace the pod is
   running (\_\_meta_kubernetes_namespace) or the name of the container inside the pod (\_\_meta_kubernetes_pod_container_name)
-* The label \_\_path\_\_ is a special label which Promtail will read to find out where the log files are to be read in.
+* The label \_\_path\_\_ is a special label which Promtail will read to find out where the log files are to be read in,
+  it will be translated into a label named `filename` to ensure uniqueness of the streams.
 
 The most important part of each entry is the *relabel_configs* which are a list of operations which creates,
 renames, modifies or alters labels. A single scrape_config can also reject logs by doing an "action: drop" if
diff --git a/pkg/promtail/promtail_test.go b/pkg/promtail/promtail_test.go
index 02cfa5c11302e27ed2657283a3a83405256c4e9c..10d099a57e8a9af8a2a1da57710a33f927397c48 100644
--- a/pkg/promtail/promtail_test.go
+++ b/pkg/promtail/promtail_test.go
@@ -380,13 +380,13 @@ func (h *testServerHandler) ServeHTTP(w http.ResponseWriter, r *http.Request) {
 		}
 		file := ""
 		for _, label := range labels {
-			if label.Name == "__filename__" {
+			if label.Name == "filename" {
 				file = label.Value
 				continue
 			}
 		}
 		if file == "" {
-			h.t.Error("Expected to find a label with name __filename__ but did not!")
+			h.t.Error("Expected to find a label with name `filename` but did not!")
 			return
 		}
 		if _, ok := h.receivedMap[file]; ok {
diff --git a/pkg/promtail/targets/filetarget.go b/pkg/promtail/targets/filetarget.go
index 755e997dffc294388dc8841e89e6c0dfab905c9e..0b0d19cf6668415ab80fab7a6ae605c272bab32e 100644
--- a/pkg/promtail/targets/filetarget.go
+++ b/pkg/promtail/targets/filetarget.go
@@ -46,7 +46,7 @@ var (
 )
 
 const (
-	filenameLabel = "__filename__"
+	filenameLabel = "filename"
 )
 
 // Config describes behavior for Target