diff --git a/doc/source/whatsnew/v0.21.0.txt b/doc/source/whatsnew/v0.21.0.txt
index 6ddf6029b99bba..993c35dce7bacd 100644
--- a/doc/source/whatsnew/v0.21.0.txt
+++ b/doc/source/whatsnew/v0.21.0.txt
@@ -116,6 +116,8 @@ Other API Changes
 Deprecations
 ~~~~~~~~~~~~
 - :func:`read_excel()` has deprecated ``sheetname`` in favor of ``sheet_name`` for consistency with ``.to_excel()`` (:issue:`10559`).
+- :method:`Series.argmax` has been deprecated in favor of :method:`Series.idxmax` (:issue:`16830`)
+- :method:`Series.argmin` has been deprecated in favor of :method:`Series.idxmin` (:issue:`16830`)
 
 
 .. _whatsnew_0210.prior_deprecations:
diff --git a/pandas/core/series.py b/pandas/core/series.py
index e1f668dd3afdae..5294031be0ff8a 100644
--- a/pandas/core/series.py
+++ b/pandas/core/series.py
@@ -71,7 +71,8 @@
 import pandas.core.common as com
 import pandas.core.nanops as nanops
 import pandas.io.formats.format as fmt
-from pandas.util._decorators import Appender, deprecate_kwarg, Substitution
+from pandas.util._decorators import (
+    Appender, deprecate, deprecate_kwarg, Substitution)
 from pandas.util._validators import validate_bool_kwarg
 
 from pandas._libs import index as libindex, tslib as libts, lib, iNaT
@@ -1293,8 +1294,8 @@ def idxmax(self, axis=None, skipna=True, *args, **kwargs):
         return self.index[i]
 
     # ndarray compat
-    argmin = idxmin
-    argmax = idxmax
+    argmin = deprecate('argmin', idxmin)
+    argmax = deprecate('argmax', idxmax)
 
     def round(self, decimals=0, *args, **kwargs):
         """