diff --git a/sentencesplit/spacy_component.py b/sentencesplit/spacy_component.py
index 9f1f4d9..7369f83 100644
--- a/sentencesplit/spacy_component.py
+++ b/sentencesplit/spacy_component.py
@@ -3,17 +3,31 @@
 
 import re
 
+from sentencesplit.languages import LANGUAGE_CODES
+
+_DEFAULT_COMPONENT_NAME = "sentencesplit"
+_DEFAULT_LANGUAGE = object()
+
 
 class SentenceSplitFactory:
     """sentencesplit as a spacy component through entrypoints"""
 
-    def __init__(self, nlp, name: str = "sentencesplit", language: str = "en") -> None:
+    def __init__(self, nlp, name: str = _DEFAULT_COMPONENT_NAME, language: str | object = _DEFAULT_LANGUAGE) -> None:
+        if language is _DEFAULT_LANGUAGE:
+            if name != _DEFAULT_COMPONENT_NAME and name in LANGUAGE_CODES:
+                language_code = name
+                name = _DEFAULT_COMPONENT_NAME
+            else:
+                language_code = "en"
+        else:
+            language_code = language
+
         self.nlp = nlp
         self.name = name
         # Deferred import avoids circular dependency with sentencesplit.__init__
         from sentencesplit import Segmenter
 
-        self.seg = Segmenter(language=language, clean=False)
+        self.seg = Segmenter(language=language_code, clean=False)
 
     def __call__(self, doc):
         sents_char_spans = self.seg.segment_spans(doc.text)
diff --git a/tests/test_spacy_component.py b/tests/test_spacy_component.py
index a7711e3..fc82dc7 100644
--- a/tests/test_spacy_component.py
+++ b/tests/test_spacy_component.py
@@ -22,6 +22,34 @@ def test_create_sentencesplit_is_importable_without_spacy_runtime():
     assert isinstance(factory, SentenceSplitFactory)
 
 
+def test_spacy_component_preserves_positional_language_argument():
+    factory = SentenceSplitFactory(None, "fr")
+
+    assert factory.name == "sentencesplit"
+    assert factory.seg.language == "fr"
+
+
+def test_create_sentencesplit_preserves_spacy_name_and_language():
+    factory = create_sentencesplit(None, "custom_sentences", "fr")
+
+    assert factory.name == "custom_sentences"
+    assert factory.seg.language == "fr"
+
+
+def test_spacy_component_preserves_explicit_english_with_language_code_name():
+    factory = SentenceSplitFactory(None, "fr", "en")
+
+    assert factory.name == "fr"
+    assert factory.seg.language == "en"
+
+
+def test_create_sentencesplit_preserves_explicit_english_with_language_code_name():
+    factory = create_sentencesplit(None, "fr", "en")
+
+    assert factory.name == "fr"
+    assert factory.seg.language == "en"
+
+
 def test_spacy_component_reads_doc_text():
     doc = FakeDoc("Hello. World.", [0, 1, 7])
     factory = SentenceSplitFactory(None)