diff --git a/include/linux/string.h b/include/linux/string.h
index 3418b4f..c9823da 100644
--- a/include/linux/string.h
+++ b/include/linux/string.h
@@ -111,6 +111,18 @@
 
 void *memchr_inv(const void *start, int c, size_t bytes);
 
+/**
+ * kbasename - return the last part of a pathname.
+ *
+ * @path: path to extract the filename from.
+ */
+static inline const char *kbasename(const char *path)
+{
+	const char *tail = strrchr(path, '/');
+	return tail ? tail + 1 : path;
+}
+
+
 #ifdef __cplusplus
 }
 #endif
diff --git a/lib/libgen.c b/lib/libgen.c
index 08ef352..61a8670 100644
--- a/lib/libgen.c
+++ b/lib/libgen.c
@@ -17,23 +17,11 @@
 
 #include <common.h>
 #include <libgen.h>
+#include <linux/string.h>
 
 char *basename (char *path)
 {
-	char *fname;
-
-	if(!strchr(path, '/'))
-		return path;
-
-	fname = path + strlen(path) - 1;
-	while (fname >= path) {
-		if (*fname == '/') {
-			fname++;
-			break;
-		}
-		fname--;
-	}
-	return fname;
+	return (char *)kbasename(path);
 }
 EXPORT_SYMBOL(basename);