diff --git a/instrumentation/opentelemetry-instrumentation-requests/src/opentelemetry/instrumentation/requests/__init__.py b/instrumentation/opentelemetry-instrumentation-requests/src/opentelemetry/instrumentation/requests/__init__.py
index db08e5e30..02128f944 100644
--- a/instrumentation/opentelemetry-instrumentation-requests/src/opentelemetry/instrumentation/requests/__init__.py
+++ b/instrumentation/opentelemetry-instrumentation-requests/src/opentelemetry/instrumentation/requests/__init__.py
@@ -125,9 +125,9 @@ def _instrument(tracer_provider=None, span_callback=None, name_callback=None):
         # https://github.com/open-telemetry/opentelemetry-specification/blob/master/specification/trace/semantic_conventions/http.md#http-client
         method = method.upper()
         span_name = ""
-        if name_callback:
+        if name_callback is not None:
             span_name = name_callback()
-        if not span_name:
+        if not span_name or not isinstance(span_name, str):
             span_name = get_default_span_name(method)
 
         recorder = RequestsInstrumentor().metric_recorder