diff --git a/ci/doctests.sh b/ci/doctests.sh
index 04b3e14a7120a..fee33a0f93f40 100755
--- a/ci/doctests.sh
+++ b/ci/doctests.sh
@@ -21,7 +21,7 @@ if [ "$DOCTEST" ]; then
 
     # DataFrame / Series docstrings
     pytest --doctest-modules -v pandas/core/frame.py \
-        -k"-assign -axes -combine -isin -itertuples -join -nlargest -nsmallest -nunique -pivot_table -quantile -query -reindex -reindex_axis -replace -round -set_index -stack -to_dict -to_records -to_stata -transform"
+        -k"-assign -axes -combine -isin -itertuples -join -nlargest -nsmallest -nunique -pivot_table -quantile -query -reindex -reindex_axis -replace -round -set_index -stack -to_dict -to_stata -transform"
 
     if [ $? -ne "0" ]; then
         RET=1
diff --git a/pandas/core/frame.py b/pandas/core/frame.py
index 7a10fb1023806..409a722017e72 100644
--- a/pandas/core/frame.py
+++ b/pandas/core/frame.py
@@ -1337,14 +1337,15 @@ def to_records(self, index=True, convert_datetime64=None):
         """
         Convert DataFrame to a NumPy record array.
 
-        Index will be put in the 'index' field of the record array if
+        Index will be included as the first field of the record array if
         requested.
 
         Parameters
         ----------
-        index : boolean, default True
-            Include index in resulting record array, stored in 'index' field.
-        convert_datetime64 : boolean, default None
+        index : bool, default True
+            Include index in resulting record array, stored in 'index'
+            field or using the index label, if set.
+        convert_datetime64 : bool, default None
             .. deprecated:: 0.23.0
 
             Whether to convert the index to datetime.datetime if it is a
@@ -1352,7 +1353,9 @@ def to_records(self, index=True, convert_datetime64=None):
 
         Returns
         -------
-        y : numpy.recarray
+        numpy.recarray
+            NumPy ndarray with the DataFrame labels as fields and each row
+            of the DataFrame as entries.
 
         See Also
         --------
@@ -1374,31 +1377,20 @@ def to_records(self, index=True, convert_datetime64=None):
         rec.array([('a', 1, 0.5 ), ('b', 2, 0.75)],
                   dtype=[('index', 'O'), ('A', '<i8'), ('B', '<f8')])
 
+        If the DataFrame index has no label then the recarray field name
+        is set to 'index'. If the index has a label then this is used as the
+        field name:
+
+        >>> df.index = df.index.rename("I")
+        >>> df.to_records()
+        rec.array([('a', 1, 0.5 ), ('b', 2, 0.75)],
+                  dtype=[('I', 'O'), ('A', '<i8'), ('B', '<f8')])
+
         The index can be excluded from the record array:
 
         >>> df.to_records(index=False)
         rec.array([(1, 0.5 ), (2, 0.75)],
                   dtype=[('A', '<i8'), ('B', '<f8')])
-
-        By default, timestamps are converted to `datetime.datetime`:
-
-        >>> df.index = pd.date_range('2018-01-01 09:00', periods=2, freq='min')
-        >>> df
-                             A     B
-        2018-01-01 09:00:00  1  0.50
-        2018-01-01 09:01:00  2  0.75
-        >>> df.to_records()
-        rec.array([(datetime.datetime(2018, 1, 1, 9, 0), 1, 0.5 ),
-                   (datetime.datetime(2018, 1, 1, 9, 1), 2, 0.75)],
-                  dtype=[('index', 'O'), ('A', '<i8'), ('B', '<f8')])
-
-        The timestamp conversion can be disabled so NumPy's datetime64
-        data type is used instead:
-
-        >>> df.to_records(convert_datetime64=False)
-        rec.array([('2018-01-01T09:00:00.000000000', 1, 0.5 ),
-                   ('2018-01-01T09:01:00.000000000', 2, 0.75)],
-                  dtype=[('index', '<M8[ns]'), ('A', '<i8'), ('B', '<f8')])
         """
 
         if convert_datetime64 is not None: