diff --git a/python/mxnet/gluon/block.py b/python/mxnet/gluon/block.py
index eff7dd754572..629ff22ec4e0 100644
--- a/python/mxnet/gluon/block.py
+++ b/python/mxnet/gluon/block.py
@@ -24,7 +24,7 @@
 import copy
 import warnings
 import re
-from collections import OrderedDict
+from collections import OrderedDict, defaultdict
 
 from ..base import mx_real_t, MXNetError
 from .. import symbol, ndarray, initializer
@@ -413,7 +413,7 @@ def _collect_params_with_prefix(self, prefix=''):
             ret.update(child._collect_params_with_prefix(prefix + name))
         return ret
 
-    def save_parameters(self, filename):
+    def save_parameters(self, filename, deduplicate=False):
         """Save parameters to file.
 
         Saved parameters can only be loaded with `load_parameters`. Note that this
@@ -424,6 +424,10 @@ def save_parameters(self, filename):
         ----------
         filename : str
             Path to file.
+        deduplicate : bool, default False
+            If True, save shared parameters only once. Otherwise, if a Block
+            contains multiple sub-blocks that share parameters, each of the
+            shared parameters will be separately saved for every sub-block.
 
         References
         ----------
@@ -431,7 +435,17 @@ def save_parameters(self, filename):
         <https://mxnet.apache.org/api/python/docs/tutorials/packages/gluon/blocks/save_load_params.html>`_
         """
         params = self._collect_params_with_prefix()
-        arg_dict = {key : val._reduce() for key, val in params.items()}
+
+        if deduplicate:
+            # Shared parameters are stored only a single time as of MXNet 1.6.
+            # Shared parameters are registered under multiple prefixes returned by
+            # _collect_params_with_prefix. We select a single one and only store
+            # it. In load_parameters it is sufficient for a shared parameter to
+            # only set it for a single prefix.
+            reverse_params = {v: k for k, v in params.items()}
+            params = {v: k for k, v in reverse_params.items()}
+
+        arg_dict = {key: val._reduce() for key, val in params.items()}
         save_fn = _mx_npx.save if is_np_array() else ndarray.save
         save_fn(filename, arg_dict)
 
@@ -510,15 +524,24 @@ def load_parameters(self, filename, ctx=None, allow_missing=False,
 
         if not any('.' in i for i in loaded.keys()):
             # legacy loading
-            del loaded
+            loaded = None  # This should be changed to `del loaded` when dropping Python 2
             self.collect_params().load(
                 filename, ctx, allow_missing, ignore_extra, self.prefix,
                 cast_dtype=cast_dtype, dtype_source=dtype_source)
             return
 
         if not allow_missing:
-            for name in params.keys():
-                assert name in loaded, \
+            # Shared parameters are stored only a single time as of MXNet 1.6.
+            # We thus retrieve all prefixes (through _collect_params_with_prefix)
+            # that a shared parameter is used with. Check that there are no
+            # missing parameters that were not yet already loaded from the
+            # shared version.
+            params_inv = defaultdict(list)
+            for k, v in params.items():
+                params_inv[v].append(k)
+
+            for name, param in params.items():
+                assert any(p in loaded for p in params_inv[param]), \
                     "Parameter '%s' is missing in file '%s', which contains parameters: %s. " \
                     "Set allow_missing=True to ignore missing parameters."%(
                         name, filename, _brief_print_list(loaded.keys()))
diff --git a/tests/python/unittest/test_gluon.py b/tests/python/unittest/test_gluon.py
index f1d0cc7ac274..f1413e2b99c2 100644
--- a/tests/python/unittest/test_gluon.py
+++ b/tests/python/unittest/test_gluon.py
@@ -1511,6 +1511,46 @@ def forward(self, x):
     net2 = Network()
     net2.load_parameters('tmp.params')
 
+@with_seed()
+def test_save_load_deduplicate_with_shared_params():
+    class B(mx.gluon.Block):
+        def __init__(self, params=None):
+            super(B, self).__init__(params=params)
+
+            with self.name_scope():
+                self.weight = self.params.get('weight', shape=(10, 10))
+
+    class C(mx.gluon.Block):
+        def __init__(self, b1, b2):
+            super(C, self).__init__()
+            self.b1 = b1
+            self.b2 = b2
+
+    b1 = B()
+    b2 = B(b1.collect_params())
+    c = C(b1, b2)
+    c.initialize()
+    c.save_parameters('tmp.params', deduplicate=True)
+
+    params = mx.nd.load('tmp.params')
+    assert len(params) == 1  # Only a single copy of the shared parameter is saved
+
+    b1 = B()
+    b2 = B(b1.collect_params())
+    c = C(b1, b2)
+    c.load_parameters('tmp.params')
+
+    # Test default behavior
+    c.save_parameters('tmp2.params', deduplicate=False)
+
+    params = mx.nd.load('tmp2.params')
+    assert len(params) == 2  # Only a single copy of the shared parameter is saved
+
+    b1 = B()
+    b2 = B(b1.collect_params())
+    c = C(b1, b2)
+    c.load_parameters('tmp2.params')
+
 @with_seed()
 def test_symbol_block_save_load():
     class Net(gluon.HybridBlock):