diff --git a/scripts/create_baseline_stubs.py b/scripts/create_baseline_stubs.py
index 8a3e6689b..b861f98c0 100755
--- a/scripts/create_baseline_stubs.py
+++ b/scripts/create_baseline_stubs.py
@@ -16,6 +16,9 @@ import subprocess
 import sys
 from typing import Optional, Tuple
 
+if sys.version_info >= (3, 8):
+    from importlib.metadata import distribution
+
 PYRIGHT_CONFIG = "pyrightconfig.stricter.json"
 
 
@@ -116,11 +119,11 @@ def main() -> None:
     parser = argparse.ArgumentParser(
         description="""Generate baseline stubs automatically for an installed pip package
                        using stubgen. Also run black and isort. If the name of
-                       the project is different from the runtime Python package name, you must
-                       also use --package (example: --package yaml PyYAML)."""
+                       the project is different from the runtime Python package name, you may
+                       need to use --package (example: --package yaml PyYAML)."""
     )
     parser.add_argument("project", help="name of PyPI project for which to generate stubs under stubs/")
-    parser.add_argument("--package", help="generate stubs for this Python package (defaults to project)")
+    parser.add_argument("--package", help="generate stubs for this Python package (default is autodetected)")
     args = parser.parse_args()
     project = args.project
     package = args.package
@@ -129,7 +132,18 @@ def main() -> None:
         sys.exit(f"Invalid character in project name: {project!r}")
 
     if not package:
-        package = project  # TODO: infer from installed files
+        package = project  # default
+        # Try to find which packages are provided by the project
+        # Use default if that fails or if several packages are found
+        #
+        # The importlib.metadata module is used for projects whose name is different
+        # from the runtime Python package name (example: PyYAML/yaml)
+        if sys.version_info >= (3, 8):
+            packages = [name for name in distribution(project).read_text("top_level.txt").split() if not name.startswith("_")]
+            if len(packages) == 1:
+                package = packages[0]
+        print(f'Using detected package "{package}" for project "{project}"', file=sys.stderr)
+        print("Suggestion: Try again with --package argument if that's not what you wanted", file=sys.stderr)
 
     if not os.path.isdir("stubs") or not os.path.isdir("stdlib"):
         sys.exit("Error: Current working directory must be the root of typeshed repository")