James Kirke Paulding, American author and politician, 11th United States Secretary of the Navy (born 1778)

James Kirke Paulding was an American writer and, for a time, the United States Secretary of the Navy. Paulding's early writings were satirical and violently anti-British, as shown in The Diverting History of John Bull and Brother Jonathan (1812). He wrote numerous long poems and serious histories. Among his novels are Konigsmarke, the Long Finne (1823) and The Dutchman's Fireside (1831). He is best known for creating the inimitable Nimrod Wildfire, the "half horse, half alligator" in The Lion of the West (1831), and as collaborator with William Irving and Washington Irving in Salmagundi. (1807–08). Paulding was also, by the mid-1830s, an ardent and outspoken defender of slavery who later endorsed southern secession from the United States.

The secretary of the Navy (SECNAV) is a statutory officer and the head of the Department of the Navy, a military department within the United States Department of Defense. On March 25, 2025, John Phelan was confirmed as Secretary of the Navy.