This is, in fact, the exact reason for the _source attribute which is being discussed in this article - you can use namedtuple to easily create a structure, get

This is, in fact, the exact reason for the _source attribute which is being discussed in this article - you can use namedtuple to easily create a structure, get its source, and then edit it to suit your individual project needs. E.g.: >>> from collections import namedtuple >>> FullName = namedtuple("FullName", "forename surname") >>> print(FullName._source) from builtins import property as _property, tuple as _tuple from operator import itemgetter as _itemgetter from collections import OrderedDict class FullName(tuple): 'FullName(forename, surname)' __slots__ = () _fields = ('forename', 'surname') def __new__(_cls, forename, surname): 'Create new instance of FullName(forename, surname)' return _tuple.__new__(_cls, (forename, surname)) @classmethod def _make(cls, iterable, new=tuple.__new__, len=len): 'Make a new FullName object from a sequence or iterable' result = new(cls, iterable) if len(result) != 2: raise TypeError('Expected 2 arguments, got %d' % len(result)) return result def _replace(_self, **kwds): 'Return a new FullName object replacing specified fields with new values' result = _self._make(map(kwds.pop, ('forename', 'surname'), _self)) if kwds: raise ValueError('Got unexpected field names: %r' % list(kwds)) return result def __repr__(self): 'Return a nicely formatted representation string' return self.__class__.__name__ + '(forename=%r, surname=%r)' % self def _asdict(self): 'Return a new OrderedDict which maps field names to their values.' return OrderedDict(zip(self._fields, self)) def __getnewargs__(self): 'Return self as a plain tuple. Used by copy and pickle.' return tuple(self) forename = _property(_itemgetter(0), doc='Alias for field number 0') surname = _property(_itemgetter(1), doc='Alias for field number 1') You can then pretty simply remove the inheritance from tuple and change the properties to get the behavior you describe.