diff --git a/.changeset/add_support_for_x_enum_varnames_to_string_enums.md b/.changeset/add_support_for_x_enum_varnames_to_string_enums.md
@@ -0,0 +1,9 @@
+---
+default: minor
+---
+
+# Add support for x-enum-varnames to string enums
+
+#1358 by @mbbush
+
+You can now customize the variable names of the generated string enumerations using the x-enum-varnames openapi extension. Previously, this was only possible for integer enumerations.
diff --git a/end_to_end_tests/functional_tests/generated_code_execution/test_enums_and_consts.py b/end_to_end_tests/functional_tests/generated_code_execution/test_enums_and_consts.py
@@ -71,6 +71,35 @@ def test_invalid_values(self, MyModel):
             MyModel.from_dict({"enumProp": 2})
 
 
+@with_generated_client_fixture(
+"""
+components:
+  schemas:
+    MyStrEnum:
+      type: string
+      enum: ["a", "b", "c"]
+      x-enum-varnames: [
+        "One",
+        "More than OnE",
+        "not_quite_four"
+      ]
+""")
+@with_generated_code_imports(
+    ".models.MyStrEnum",
+)
+class TestStrEnumVarNameExtensions:
+    @pytest.mark.parametrize(
+        "expected_name,expected_value",
+        [
+            ("ONE", "a"),
+            ("MORE_THAN_ON_E", "b"),
+            ("NOT_QUITE_FOUR", "c"),
+        ],
+    )
+    def test_enum_values(self, MyStrEnum, expected_name, expected_value):
+        assert getattr(MyStrEnum, expected_name) == MyStrEnum(expected_value)
+
+
 @with_generated_client_fixture(
 """
 components:

diff --git a/openapi_python_client/parser/properties/enum_property.py b/openapi_python_client/parser/properties/enum_property.py
@@ -201,7 +201,9 @@ def values_from_list(
                 else:
                     output[f"VALUE_{value}"] = value
                 continue
-            if value and value[0].isalpha():
+            if use_var_names:
+                key = var_names[i]
+            elif value and value[0].isalpha():
                 key = value.upper()
             else:
                 key = f"VALUE_{i}"