diff a/src/hotspot/share/gc/shared/generationCounters.cpp b/src/hotspot/share/gc/shared/generationCounters.cpp
--- a/src/hotspot/share/gc/shared/generationCounters.cpp
+++ b/src/hotspot/share/gc/shared/generationCounters.cpp
@@ -1,7 +1,7 @@
 /*
- * Copyright (c) 2002, 2015, Oracle and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved.
+ * Copyright (c) 2002, 2019, Oracle and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved.
  * DO NOT ALTER OR REMOVE COPYRIGHT NOTICES OR THIS FILE HEADER.
  *
  * This code is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it
  * under the terms of the GNU General Public License version 2 only, as
  * published by the Free Software Foundation.
@@ -78,13 +78,11 @@
   : _virtual_space(NULL) {
   initialize(name, ordinal, spaces, min_capacity, max_capacity, curr_capacity);
 }
 
 GenerationCounters::~GenerationCounters() {
-  if (_name_space != NULL) {
-    FREE_C_HEAP_ARRAY(char, _name_space);
-  }
+  FREE_C_HEAP_ARRAY(char, _name_space);
 }
 
 void GenerationCounters::update_all() {
   assert(_virtual_space != NULL, "otherwise, override this method");
   _current_size->set_value(_virtual_space->committed_size());