diff --git a/DESCRIPTION b/DESCRIPTION
index e7b97223b..e03a20f64 100644
--- a/DESCRIPTION
+++ b/DESCRIPTION
@@ -5,7 +5,7 @@ Version: 0.3-1
 Date: 2016-03-17
 Title: Simple Data Frames
 Description: Provides a 'tbl_df' class that offers better checking and
-        printing capabilities than traditional data frames.
+    printing capabilities than traditional data frames.
 Authors@R: c( person("Hadley", "Wickham", , "hadley@rstudio.com", role
         = "aut"), person("Romain", "Francois", ,
         "romain@r-enthusiasts.com", role = "aut"), person("Kirill",
@@ -13,12 +13,38 @@ Authors@R: c( person("Hadley", "Wickham", , "hadley@rstudio.com", role
         person("RStudio", role = "cph") )
 URL: https://github.com/krlmlr/tibble
 BugReports: https://github.com/krlmlr/tibble/issues
-Depends: R (>= 3.1.2)
-Imports: methods, assertthat, utils, lazyeval (>= 0.1.10), Rcpp
-Suggests: testthat, knitr, rmarkdown, Lahman (>= 3.0.1), magrittr,
-        microbenchmark
+Depends:
+    R (>= 3.1.2)
+Imports:
+    methods,
+    assertthat,
+    utils,
+    lazyeval (>= 0.1.10),
+    Rcpp
+Suggests:
+    testthat,
+    knitr,
+    rmarkdown,
+    Lahman (>= 3.0.1),
+    magrittr,
+    microbenchmark
 LazyData: yes
 License: MIT + file LICENSE
 RoxygenNote: 5.0.1
 LinkingTo: Rcpp
 VignetteBuilder: knitr
+Collate:
+    'RcppExports.R'
+    'all-equal.r'
+    'rownames.R'
+    'dataframe.R'
+    'frame-data.R'
+    'glimpse.R'
+    'repair-column-names.R'
+    'src-local.r'
+    'src.r'
+    'tbl-df.r'
+    'tibble.R'
+    'type-sum.r'
+    'utils-format.r'
+    'utils.r'
diff --git a/NAMESPACE b/NAMESPACE
index 1610b25b3..9bf6556e1 100644
--- a/NAMESPACE
+++ b/NAMESPACE
@@ -41,9 +41,11 @@ export(data_frame_)
 export(dim_desc)
 export(frame_data)
 export(glimpse)
+export(has_rownames)
 export(knit_print.trunc_mat)
 export(lst)
 export(lst_)
+export(remove_rownames)
 export(repair_names)
 export(rownames_to_column)
 export(tbl_df)
diff --git a/R/dataframe.R b/R/dataframe.R
index 9326a5560..9b94c8c16 100644
--- a/R/dataframe.R
+++ b/R/dataframe.R
@@ -201,16 +201,14 @@ as_data_frame.NULL <- function(x, ...) {
   as_data_frame(list())
 }
 
-#' Conversion between rownames and a column in data frame
-#'
 #' \code{rownames_to_column} convert row names to an explicit variable.
 #'
-#' @param df Input data frame with rownames.
 #' @param var Name of variable to use
 #' @export
 #' @rdname rownames
 #' @importFrom stats setNames
 #' @examples
+#'
 #' rownames_to_column(mtcars)
 #'
 #' mtcars_tbl <- rownames_to_column(tbl_df(mtcars))
diff --git a/R/rownames.R b/R/rownames.R
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..790e6da9d
--- /dev/null
+++ b/R/rownames.R
@@ -0,0 +1,24 @@
+#' Row names
+#'
+#' \code{has_rownames} checks if a data frame has row names.
+#' @param df Input data frame
+#' @export
+#' @rdname rownames
+#' @examples
+#' has_rownames(mtcars)
+#' has_rownames(iris)
+has_rownames <- function(df) {
+  stopifnot(is.data.frame(df))
+  .row_names_info(df) > 0L
+}
+
+#' \code{remove_rownames} removes all row names.
+#' @export
+#' @rdname rownames
+#' @examples
+#' rownames(remove_rownames(mtcars))
+remove_rownames <- function(df) {
+  stopifnot(is.data.frame(df))
+  attr(df, "row.names") <- .set_row_names(nrow(df))
+  df
+}
diff --git a/man/rownames.Rd b/man/rownames.Rd
index 30fbc6351..293a2a212 100644
--- a/man/rownames.Rd
+++ b/man/rownames.Rd
@@ -1,26 +1,40 @@
 % Generated by roxygen2: do not edit by hand
-% Please edit documentation in R/dataframe.R
-\name{rownames_to_column}
+% Please edit documentation in R/rownames.R, R/dataframe.R
+\name{has_rownames}
 \alias{column_to_rownames}
+\alias{has_rownames}
+\alias{remove_rownames}
 \alias{rownames_to_column}
-\title{Conversion between rownames and a column in data frame}
+\title{Row names}
 \usage{
+has_rownames(df)
+
+remove_rownames(df)
+
 rownames_to_column(df, var = "rowname")
 
 column_to_rownames(df, var = "rowname")
 }
 \arguments{
-\item{df}{Input data frame with rownames.}
+\item{df}{Input data frame}
 
 \item{var}{Name of variable to use}
 }
 \description{
+\code{has_rownames} checks if a data frame has row names.
+
+\code{remove_rownames} removes all row names.
+
 \code{rownames_to_column} convert row names to an explicit variable.
 
 \code{column_to_rownames} convert a column variable to row names. This is an
 inverted operation of \code{rownames_to_column}.
 }
 \examples{
+has_rownames(mtcars)
+has_rownames(iris)
+rownames(remove_rownames(mtcars))
+
 rownames_to_column(mtcars)
 
 mtcars_tbl <- rownames_to_column(tbl_df(mtcars))
diff --git a/tests/testthat/test-rownames.R b/tests/testthat/test-rownames.R
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..006c4e07a
--- /dev/null
+++ b/tests/testthat/test-rownames.R
@@ -0,0 +1,8 @@
+context("rownames")
+
+test_that("has_rownames and remove_rownames", {
+  expect_false(has_rownames(iris))
+  expect_true(has_rownames(mtcars))
+  expect_false(has_rownames(remove_rownames(mtcars)))
+  expect_error(has_rownames(1:10))
+})