diff --git a/arch/powerpc/mm/init-common.c b/arch/powerpc/mm/init-common.c
index 119ef491f797..d3a7726ecf51 100644
--- a/arch/powerpc/mm/init-common.c
+++ b/arch/powerpc/mm/init-common.c
@@ -126,7 +126,7 @@ void pgtable_cache_add(unsigned int shift)
 	 * as to leave enough 0 bits in the address to contain it. */
 	unsigned long minalign = max(MAX_PGTABLE_INDEX_SIZE + 1,
 				     HUGEPD_SHIFT_MASK + 1);
-	struct kmem_cache *new;
+	struct kmem_cache *new = NULL;
 
 	/* It would be nice if this was a BUILD_BUG_ON(), but at the
 	 * moment, gcc doesn't seem to recognize is_power_of_2 as a
@@ -139,7 +139,8 @@ void pgtable_cache_add(unsigned int shift)
 
 	align = max_t(unsigned long, align, minalign);
 	name = kasprintf(GFP_KERNEL, "pgtable-2^%d", shift);
-	new = kmem_cache_create(name, table_size, align, 0, ctor(shift));
+	if (name)
+		new = kmem_cache_create(name, table_size, align, 0, ctor(shift));
 	if (!new)
 		panic("Could not allocate pgtable cache for order %d", shift);