diff --git a/novaclient/v2/shell.py b/novaclient/v2/shell.py
index b993fbc0d..a85c9b967 100644
--- a/novaclient/v2/shell.py
+++ b/novaclient/v2/shell.py
@@ -1423,7 +1423,9 @@ def _print_flavor(flavor):
     dest='instance_name',
     metavar='<name-regexp>',
     default=None,
-    help=_('Search with regular expression match by server name.'))
+    action=shell.DeprecatedAction,
+    help=_('Search with regular expression match by server name. The option '
+           'is not used and will be removed in T release.'))
 @utils.arg(
     '--status',
     dest='status',
diff --git a/releasenotes/notes/deprecate-instance-name-option-bc76629d28f1d456.yaml b/releasenotes/notes/deprecate-instance-name-option-bc76629d28f1d456.yaml
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..270d8dcfe
--- /dev/null
+++ b/releasenotes/notes/deprecate-instance-name-option-bc76629d28f1d456.yaml
@@ -0,0 +1,7 @@
+---
+deprecations:
+  - |
+    The ``--instance-name`` option has been deprecated from the ``nova list``
+    command because the instance name query parameter is ignored by the
+    compute REST API.
+