diff --git a/src/java/org/apache/lucene/analysis/StopFilter.java b/src/java/org/apache/lucene/analysis/StopFilter.java
index c255a886756..0acf1cc2e59 100644
--- a/src/java/org/apache/lucene/analysis/StopFilter.java
+++ b/src/java/org/apache/lucene/analysis/StopFilter.java
@@ -65,7 +65,7 @@ import java.util.Set;
 
 public final class StopFilter extends TokenFilter {
 
-  private Set table;
+  private Set stopWords;
 
   /**
    * Constructs a filter which removes words from the input
@@ -73,7 +73,7 @@ public final class StopFilter extends TokenFilter {
    */
   public StopFilter(TokenStream in, String[] stopWords) {
     super(in);
-    table = makeStopSet(stopWords);
+    this.stopWords = makeStopSet(stopWords);
   }
 
   /**
@@ -84,16 +84,16 @@ public final class StopFilter extends TokenFilter {
    */
   public StopFilter(TokenStream in, Hashtable stopTable) {
     super(in);
-    table = stopTable.keySet();
+    stopWords = new HashSet(stopTable.keySet());
   }
 
   /**
    * Constructs a filter which removes words from the input
    * TokenStream that are named in the Set.
    */
-  public StopFilter(TokenStream in, Set stopTable) {
+  public StopFilter(TokenStream in, Set stopWords) {
     super(in);
-    table = stopTable;
+    this.stopWords = new HashSet(stopWords);
   }
 
   /**
@@ -114,7 +114,7 @@ public final class StopFilter extends TokenFilter {
   /**
    * Builds a Set from an array of stop words,
    * appropriate for passing into the StopFilter constructor.
-   * This permits this table construction to be cached once when
+   * This permits this stopWords construction to be cached once when
    * an Analyzer is constructed.
    */
   public static final Set makeStopSet(String[] stopWords) {
@@ -130,7 +130,7 @@ public final class StopFilter extends TokenFilter {
   public final Token next() throws IOException {
     // return the first non-stop word found
     for (Token token = input.next(); token != null; token = input.next())
-      if (!table.contains(token.termText))
+      if (!stopWords.contains(token.termText))
         return token;
     // reached EOS -- return null
     return null;