Index: Lib/email/test/test_email.py
===================================================================
--- Lib/email/test/test_email.py	(revision 81675)
+++ Lib/email/test/test_email.py	(working copy)
@@ -2868,7 +2868,11 @@
         self.assertEqual(str(charset), 'us-ascii')
         self.assertRaises(Errors.CharsetError, Charset, 'asc\xffii')
 
+    def test_codecs_aliases_accepted(self):
+        charset = Charset('utf8')
+        self.assertEqual(str(charset), 'utf-8')
 
+
 
 # Test multilingual MIME headers.
 class TestHeader(TestEmailBase):
Index: Lib/email/charset.py
===================================================================
--- Lib/email/charset.py	(revision 81673)
+++ Lib/email/charset.py	(working copy)
@@ -9,6 +9,7 @@
     'add_codec',
     ]
 
+import codecs
 import email.base64mime
 import email.quoprimime
 
@@ -209,7 +210,12 @@
         except UnicodeError:
             raise errors.CharsetError(input_charset)
         input_charset = input_charset.lower()
-        # Set the input charset after filtering through the aliases
+        # Set the input charset after filtering through the aliases and/or codecs
+        if not (input_charset in ALIASES or input_charset in CHARSETS):
+            try:
+                input_charset = codecs.lookup(input_charset).name
+            except LookupError:
+                pass
         self.input_charset = ALIASES.get(input_charset, input_charset)
         # We can try to guess which encoding and conversion to use by the
         # charset_map dictionary.  Try that first, but let the user override