diff --git a/cloud/docker b/cloud/docker
index 509e5eb9559..79c6145bc61 100644
--- a/cloud/docker
+++ b/cloud/docker
@@ -380,7 +380,7 @@ class DockerManager:
 
         self.links = None
         if self.module.params.get('links'):
-            self.links = dict(map(lambda x: x.split(':'), self.module.params.get('links')))
+            self.links = self.get_links(self.module.params.get('links'))
 
         self.env = None
         if self.module.params.get('env'):
@@ -391,6 +391,22 @@ class DockerManager:
         self.client = docker.Client(base_url=docker_url.geturl())
 
 
+    def get_links(self, links):
+        """
+        Parse the links passed, if a link is specified without an alias then just create the alias of the same name as the link
+        """
+        processed_links = {}
+
+        for link in links:
+            parsed_link = link.split(':', 1)
+            if(len(parsed_link) == 2):
+                processed_links[parsed_link[0]] = parsed_link[1]
+            else:
+                processed_links[parsed_link[0]] = parsed_link[0]
+
+        return processed_links
+
+
     def get_exposed_ports(self, expose_list):
         """
         Parse the ports and protocols (TCP/UDP) to expose in the docker-py `create_container` call from the docker CLI-style syntax.
@@ -452,7 +468,6 @@ class DockerManager:
         return binds
 
 
-
     def get_split_image_tag(self, image):
         if '/' in image:
             image = image.split('/')[1]