diff --git a/Doc/library/stdtypes.rst b/Doc/library/stdtypes.rst
index 93ed710..d2dfd11 100644
--- a/Doc/library/stdtypes.rst
+++ b/Doc/library/stdtypes.rst
@@ -815,8 +815,8 @@
 
 .. index:: pair: string; methods
 
-Below are listed the string methods which both 8-bit strings and Unicode objects
-support. Note that none of these methods take keyword arguments.
+Below are listed the string methods which both 8-bit strings and
+Unicode objects support.
 
 In addition, Python's strings support the sequence type methods
 described in the :ref:`typesseq` section. To output formatted strings
@@ -861,6 +861,8 @@
    .. versionchanged:: 2.3
       Support for other error handling schemes added.
 
+   .. versionchanged:: 2.7
+      Support for keyword arguments added.
 
 .. method:: str.encode([encoding[,errors]])
 
@@ -879,6 +881,8 @@
       Support for ``'xmlcharrefreplace'`` and ``'backslashreplace'`` and other error
       handling schemes added.
 
+   .. versionchanged:: 2.7
+      Support for keyword arguments added.
 
 .. method:: str.endswith(suffix[, start[, end]])
 
diff --git a/Lib/test/test_str.py b/Lib/test/test_str.py
index c546154..fa86db4 100644
--- a/Lib/test/test_str.py
+++ b/Lib/test/test_str.py
@@ -401,6 +401,17 @@
     def test_buffer_is_readonly(self):
         self.assertRaises(TypeError, sys.stdin.readinto, b"")
 
+    def test_encode_and_decode_kwargs(self):
+        self.assertEqual('abcde'.encode('ascii', 'replace'),
+                         'abcde'.encode('ascii', errors='replace'))
+        self.assertEqual('abcde'.encode('ascii', 'ignore'),
+                         'abcde'.encode(encoding='ascii', errors='ignore'))
+        self.assertEqual('Andr\202 x'.decode('ascii', 'ignore'),
+                         'Andr\202 x'.decode('ascii', errors='ignore'))
+        self.assertEqual('Andr\202 x'.decode('ascii', 'replace'),
+                         'Andr\202 x'.decode(encoding='ascii', errors='replace'))
+
+
 
 def test_main():
     test_support.run_unittest(StrTest)
diff --git a/Lib/test/test_unicode.py b/Lib/test/test_unicode.py
index 43830b2..2b269cc 100644
--- a/Lib/test/test_unicode.py
+++ b/Lib/test/test_unicode.py
@@ -593,12 +593,20 @@
         self.assertRaises(UnicodeError, u'Andr\202 x'.encode, 'ascii','strict')
         self.assertEqual(u'Andr\202 x'.encode('ascii','ignore'), "Andr x")
         self.assertEqual(u'Andr\202 x'.encode('ascii','replace'), "Andr? x")
+        self.assertEqual(u'Andr\202 x'.encode('ascii', 'replace'),
+                         u'Andr\202 x'.encode('ascii', errors='replace'))
+        self.assertEqual(u'Andr\202 x'.encode('ascii', 'ignore'),
+                         u'Andr\202 x'.encode(encoding='ascii', errors='ignore'))
 
         # Error handling (decoding)
         self.assertRaises(UnicodeError, unicode, 'Andr\202 x', 'ascii')
         self.assertRaises(UnicodeError, unicode, 'Andr\202 x', 'ascii','strict')
         self.assertEqual(unicode('Andr\202 x','ascii','ignore'), u"Andr x")
         self.assertEqual(unicode('Andr\202 x','ascii','replace'), u'Andr\uFFFD x')
+        self.assertEqual(u'abcde'.decode('ascii', 'ignore'),
+                         u'abcde'.decode('ascii', errors='ignore'))
+        self.assertEqual(u'abcde'.decode('ascii', 'replace'),
+                         u'abcde'.decode(encoding='ascii', errors='replace'))
 
         # Error handling (unknown character names)
         self.assertEqual("\\N{foo}xx".decode("unicode-escape", "ignore"), u"xx")
diff --git a/Misc/ACKS b/Misc/ACKS
index 53e386a..e0bd435 100644
--- a/Misc/ACKS
+++ b/Misc/ACKS
@@ -88,6 +88,7 @@
 Eric Bouck
 Thierry Bousch
 Sebastian Boving
+Jeff Bradberry
 Monty Brandenberg
 Georg Brandl
 Christopher Brannon
diff --git a/Misc/NEWS b/Misc/NEWS
index 0ce1168..66ee553 100644
--- a/Misc/NEWS
+++ b/Misc/NEWS
@@ -12,6 +12,9 @@
 Core and Builtins
 -----------------
 
+- Issue #6300: unicode.encode, unicode.docode, str.decode, and str.encode now
+  take keyword arguments.
+
 - Issue #6922: Fix an infinite loop when trying to decode an invalid
   UTF-32 stream with a non-raising error handler like "replace" or "ignore".
 
diff --git a/Objects/stringobject.c b/Objects/stringobject.c
index 6d933a1..1233fc0 100644
--- a/Objects/stringobject.c
+++ b/Objects/stringobject.c
@@ -3332,13 +3332,15 @@
 codecs.register_error that is able to handle UnicodeEncodeErrors.");
 
 static PyObject *
-string_encode(PyStringObject *self, PyObject *args)
+string_encode(PyStringObject *self, PyObject *args, PyObject *kwargs)
 {
+    static char *kwlist[] = {"encoding", "errors", 0};
     char *encoding = NULL;
     char *errors = NULL;
     PyObject *v;
 
-    if (!PyArg_ParseTuple(args, "|ss:encode", &encoding, &errors))
+    if (!PyArg_ParseTupleAndKeywords(args, kwargs, "|ss:encode",
+				     kwlist, &encoding, &errors))
         return NULL;
     v = PyString_AsEncodedObject((PyObject *)self, encoding, errors);
     if (v == NULL)
@@ -3369,13 +3371,15 @@
 able to handle UnicodeDecodeErrors.");
 
 static PyObject *
-string_decode(PyStringObject *self, PyObject *args)
+string_decode(PyStringObject *self, PyObject *args, PyObject *kwargs)
 {
+    static char *kwlist[] = {"encoding", "errors", 0};
     char *encoding = NULL;
     char *errors = NULL;
     PyObject *v;
 
-    if (!PyArg_ParseTuple(args, "|ss:decode", &encoding, &errors))
+    if (!PyArg_ParseTupleAndKeywords(args, kwargs, "|ss:decode",
+				     kwlist, &encoding, &errors))
         return NULL;
     v = PyString_AsDecodedObject((PyObject *)self, encoding, errors);
     if (v == NULL)
@@ -4053,8 +4057,8 @@
 	{"__format__", (PyCFunction) string__format__, METH_VARARGS, p_format__doc__},
 	{"_formatter_field_name_split", (PyCFunction) formatter_field_name_split, METH_NOARGS},
 	{"_formatter_parser", (PyCFunction) formatter_parser, METH_NOARGS},
-	{"encode", (PyCFunction)string_encode, METH_VARARGS, encode__doc__},
-	{"decode", (PyCFunction)string_decode, METH_VARARGS, decode__doc__},
+	{"encode", (PyCFunction)string_encode, METH_VARARGS | METH_KEYWORDS, encode__doc__},
+	{"decode", (PyCFunction)string_decode, METH_VARARGS | METH_KEYWORDS, decode__doc__},
 	{"expandtabs", (PyCFunction)string_expandtabs, METH_VARARGS,
 	 expandtabs__doc__},
 	{"splitlines", (PyCFunction)string_splitlines, METH_VARARGS,
diff --git a/Objects/unicodeobject.c b/Objects/unicodeobject.c
index 6164510..2028d96 100644
--- a/Objects/unicodeobject.c
+++ b/Objects/unicodeobject.c
@@ -6610,13 +6610,15 @@
 codecs.register_error that can handle UnicodeEncodeErrors.");
 
 static PyObject *
-unicode_encode(PyUnicodeObject *self, PyObject *args)
+unicode_encode(PyUnicodeObject *self, PyObject *args, PyObject *kwargs)
 {
+    static char *kwlist[] = {"encoding", "errors", 0};
     char *encoding = NULL;
     char *errors = NULL;
     PyObject *v;
 
-    if (!PyArg_ParseTuple(args, "|ss:encode", &encoding, &errors))
+    if (!PyArg_ParseTupleAndKeywords(args, kwargs, "|ss:encode",
+                                     kwlist, &encoding, &errors))
         return NULL;
     v = PyUnicode_AsEncodedObject((PyObject *)self, encoding, errors);
     if (v == NULL)
@@ -6646,13 +6648,15 @@
 able to handle UnicodeDecodeErrors.");
 
 static PyObject *
-unicode_decode(PyUnicodeObject *self, PyObject *args)
+unicode_decode(PyUnicodeObject *self, PyObject *args, PyObject *kwargs)
 {
+    static char *kwlist[] = {"encoding", "errors", 0};
     char *encoding = NULL;
     char *errors = NULL;
     PyObject *v;
 
-    if (!PyArg_ParseTuple(args, "|ss:decode", &encoding, &errors))
+    if (!PyArg_ParseTupleAndKeywords(args, kwargs, "|ss:decode",
+                                     kwlist, &encoding, &errors))
         return NULL;
     v = PyUnicode_AsDecodedObject((PyObject *)self, encoding, errors);
     if (v == NULL)
@@ -8054,7 +8058,7 @@
     /* Order is according to common usage: often used methods should
        appear first, since lookup is done sequentially. */
 
-    {"encode", (PyCFunction) unicode_encode, METH_VARARGS, encode__doc__},
+    {"encode", (PyCFunction) unicode_encode, METH_VARARGS | METH_KEYWORDS, encode__doc__},
     {"replace", (PyCFunction) unicode_replace, METH_VARARGS, replace__doc__},
     {"split", (PyCFunction) unicode_split, METH_VARARGS, split__doc__},
     {"rsplit", (PyCFunction) unicode_rsplit, METH_VARARGS, rsplit__doc__},
@@ -8070,7 +8074,7 @@
     {"ljust", (PyCFunction) unicode_ljust, METH_VARARGS, ljust__doc__},
     {"lower", (PyCFunction) unicode_lower, METH_NOARGS, lower__doc__},
     {"lstrip", (PyCFunction) unicode_lstrip, METH_VARARGS, lstrip__doc__},
-    {"decode", (PyCFunction) unicode_decode, METH_VARARGS, decode__doc__},
+    {"decode", (PyCFunction) unicode_decode, METH_VARARGS | METH_KEYWORDS, decode__doc__},
 /*  {"maketrans", (PyCFunction) unicode_maketrans, METH_VARARGS, maketrans__doc__}, */
     {"rfind", (PyCFunction) unicode_rfind, METH_VARARGS, rfind__doc__},
     {"rindex", (PyCFunction) unicode_rindex, METH_VARARGS, rindex__doc__},