diff --git a/lib/matplotlib/axes/_axes.py b/lib/matplotlib/axes/_axes.py
index 4266cba8697b..5acd79c765c0 100644
--- a/lib/matplotlib/axes/_axes.py
+++ b/lib/matplotlib/axes/_axes.py
@@ -6380,7 +6380,7 @@ def hist(self, x, bins=None, range=None, density=None, weights=None,
 
             With Numpy 1.11 or newer, you can alternatively provide a string
             describing a binning strategy, such as 'auto', 'sturges', 'fd',
-            'doane', 'scott', 'rice', 'sturges' or 'sqrt', see
+            'doane', 'scott', 'rice' or 'sqrt', see
             `numpy.histogram`.
 
             The default is taken from :rc:`hist.bins`.
diff --git a/lib/matplotlib/rcsetup.py b/lib/matplotlib/rcsetup.py
index 767f3701e917..6271119f6583 100644
--- a/lib/matplotlib/rcsetup.py
+++ b/lib/matplotlib/rcsetup.py
@@ -914,7 +914,8 @@ def validate_cycler(s):
 
 
 def validate_hist_bins(s):
-    if cbook._str_equal(s, "auto"):
+    valid_strs = ["auto", "sturges", "fd", "doane", "scott", "rice", "sqrt"]
+    if isinstance(s, str) and s in valid_strs:
         return s
     try:
         return int(s)
@@ -924,8 +925,8 @@ def validate_hist_bins(s):
         return validate_floatlist(s)
     except ValueError:
         pass
-    raise ValueError("'hist.bins' must be 'auto', an int or " +
-                     "a sequence of floats")
+    raise ValueError("'hist.bins' must be one of {}, an int or"
+                     " a sequence of floats".format(valid_strs))
 
 
 def validate_animation_writer_path(p):
diff --git a/lib/matplotlib/tests/test_rcparams.py b/lib/matplotlib/tests/test_rcparams.py
index 3380308d7d81..aaf52b0246ca 100644
--- a/lib/matplotlib/tests/test_rcparams.py
+++ b/lib/matplotlib/tests/test_rcparams.py
@@ -321,6 +321,7 @@ def generate_validator_testcases(valid):
         },
         {'validator': validate_hist_bins,
          'success': (('auto', 'auto'),
+                     ('fd', 'fd'),
                      ('10', 10),
                      ('1, 2, 3', [1, 2, 3]),
                      ([1, 2, 3], [1, 2, 3]),