diff --git a/includes/user/DefaultOptionsLookup.php b/includes/user/DefaultOptionsLookup.php
index c8da7185d4a..ebe72deb320 100644
--- a/includes/user/DefaultOptionsLookup.php
+++ b/includes/user/DefaultOptionsLookup.php
@@ -82,13 +82,11 @@ class DefaultOptionsLookup extends UserOptionsLookup {
 		$this->defaultOptions = $this->serviceOptions->get( 'DefaultUserOptions' );
 
 		// Default language setting
-		$this->defaultOptions['language'] = $this->contentLang->getCode();
+		$contentLangCode = $this->contentLang->getCode();
+		$this->defaultOptions['language'] = $contentLangCode;
+		$this->defaultOptions['variant'] = $contentLangCode;
 		foreach ( LanguageConverter::$languagesWithVariants as $langCode ) {
-			if ( $langCode === $this->contentLang->getCode() ) {
-				$this->defaultOptions['variant'] = $langCode;
-			} else {
-				$this->defaultOptions["variant-$langCode"] = $langCode;
-			}
+			$this->defaultOptions["variant-$langCode"] = $langCode;
 		}
 
 		// NOTE: don't use SearchEngineConfig::getSearchableNamespaces here,
diff --git a/tests/phpunit/includes/auth/AuthManagerTest.php b/tests/phpunit/includes/auth/AuthManagerTest.php
index 4e6488798ee..1422165e7aa 100644
--- a/tests/phpunit/includes/auth/AuthManagerTest.php
+++ b/tests/phpunit/includes/auth/AuthManagerTest.php
@@ -751,7 +751,7 @@ class AuthManagerTest extends \MediaWikiIntegrationTestCase {
 		return [
 			[ 'zh', false, 'zh', 'zh' ],
 			[ 'zh', true, 'de', 'zh' ],
-			[ 'fr', true, 'de', null ],
+			[ 'fr', true, 'de', 'fr' ],
 		];
 	}