diff --git a/plugins/views_data_export_plugin_style_export_csv.inc b/plugins/views_data_export_plugin_style_export_csv.inc
index daebeaf..b2daefc 100644
--- a/plugins/views_data_export_plugin_style_export_csv.inc
+++ b/plugins/views_data_export_plugin_style_export_csv.inc
@@ -44,6 +44,10 @@ class views_data_export_plugin_style_export_csv extends views_data_export_plugin
       'default' => TRUE,
       'translatable' => FALSE,
     );
+    $options['header_machine_names'] = array(
+      'default' => FALSE,
+      'translatable' => FALSE,
+    );
     $options['keep_html'] = array(
       'default' => FALSE,
       'translatable' => FALSE,
@@ -104,6 +108,13 @@ class views_data_export_plugin_style_export_csv extends views_data_export_plugin
       '#title' => t('Make first row a list of column headers.'),
       '#default_value' => !empty($this->options['header']),
     );
+    $form['header_machine_names'] = array(
+      '#type' => 'checkbox',
+      '#title' => t('Convert header labels to machine name format.'),
+      '#description' => t('This replaces all non-alphanumeric characters in the header with underscores and converts to lowercase.'),
+      '#default_value' => !empty($this->options['header_machine_names']),
+      '#dependency' => array('edit-style-options-header' => array(TRUE)),
+    );
     $form['keep_html'] = array(
       '#type' => 'checkbox',
       '#default_value' => !empty($this->options['keep_html']),
diff --git a/theme/views_data_export.theme.inc b/theme/views_data_export.theme.inc
index 8416d96..6d6a973 100644
--- a/theme/views_data_export.theme.inc
+++ b/theme/views_data_export.theme.inc
@@ -123,6 +123,16 @@ function template_preprocess_views_data_export_csv_header(&$vars) {
         $output = $converted;
       }
     }
+    if (!empty($vars['options']['header_machine_names'])) {
+      // Convert the header labels to machine-friendly format: conver to
+      // lowercase, replace non-alphanumeric characters with underscores.
+      $output = strtolower($output);
+      $replace_pattern = '@[^a-z0-9_]+@';
+      $replace = '_';
+
+      $output = preg_replace($replace_pattern, $replace, $output);
+    }
+
     $vars['header'][$key] = $wrap . str_replace('"', $replace_value, $output) . $wrap;
   }
 }