diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
index 523f9c89..b9e8c31e 100644
--- a/README.md
+++ b/README.md
@@ -20,3 +20,4 @@ You can access more detailed documentation for this module at [Read the Docs](ht
 The `node-irc` library isn't well maintained and there are a number of issues which are impacting development of the [Matrix-IRC application service](http://github.com/matrix-org/matrix-appservice-irc). We made the decision to fork the project in order to improve reliability of the application service. A summary of modifications from `node-irc@0.3.12` are below:
  - https://github.com/matrix-org/node-irc/pull/1 - Manifested as [BOTS-80](https://matrix.org/jira/browse/BOTS-80)
  - https://github.com/matrix-org/node-irc/pull/4 - Manifested as [BOTS-73] (https://matrix.org/jira/browse/BOTS-73)
+ - Addition of `onNickConflict()` option which is called on `err_nicknameinuse`. This function should return the next nick to try. Defaults to suffixing monotonically increasing integers.
diff --git a/lib/irc.js b/lib/irc.js
index 69d4c6b3..6d45847a 100644
--- a/lib/irc.js
+++ b/lib/irc.js
@@ -57,6 +57,12 @@ function Client(server, nick, opt) {
         channelPrefixes: '&#',
         messageSplit: 512,
         encoding: false,
+        onNickConflict: function() {
+            if (typeof (self.opt.nickMod) == 'undefined')
+                self.opt.nickMod = 0;
+            self.opt.nickMod++;
+            return self.opt.nick + self.opt.nickMod;
+        },
         webirc: {
           pass: '',
           ip: '',
@@ -228,11 +234,9 @@ function Client(server, nick, opt) {
                 // Random welcome crap, ignoring
                 break;
             case 'err_nicknameinuse':
-                if (typeof (self.opt.nickMod) == 'undefined')
-                    self.opt.nickMod = 0;
-                self.opt.nickMod++;
-                self.send('NICK', self.opt.nick + self.opt.nickMod);
-                self.nick = self.opt.nick + self.opt.nickMod;
+                var nextNick = self.opt.onNickConflict();
+                self.send('NICK', nextNick);
+                self.nick = nextNick;
                 self._updateMaxLineLength();
                 break;
             case 'PING':