diff --git a/modules/dnn/src/caffe/caffe_io.hpp b/modules/dnn/src/caffe/caffe_io.hpp
index f5912c3bce..be545f6702 100644
--- a/modules/dnn/src/caffe/caffe_io.hpp
+++ b/modules/dnn/src/caffe/caffe_io.hpp
@@ -92,6 +92,7 @@
 #ifdef HAVE_PROTOBUF
 
 #include "opencv-caffe.pb.h"
+namespace caffe { using namespace opencv_caffe; } // avoid massive renames from caffe proto package
 
 namespace cv {
 namespace dnn {
diff --git a/modules/dnn/src/caffe/opencv-caffe.proto b/modules/dnn/src/caffe/opencv-caffe.proto
index b0a31e2cd8..d28e3d23c2 100644
--- a/modules/dnn/src/caffe/opencv-caffe.proto
+++ b/modules/dnn/src/caffe/opencv-caffe.proto
@@ -48,7 +48,7 @@
 
 syntax = "proto2";
 
-package caffe;
+package opencv_caffe;
 
 // NVidia's Caffe feature is used to store fp16 weights, https://github.com/NVIDIA/caffe:
 // Math and storage types