Angelina Jolie's Fourth Child Petitions to Drop 'Pitt' Surname in Latest Family Name Change

Angelina Jolie's 18-year-old daughter Vivienne has filed a legal petition to drop her father's surname, becoming the fourth of the former Hollywood couple's children to initiate formal name-change proceedings. The petition, submitted to Los Angeles County Superior Court, requests her legal name be changed from Vivienne Marcheline Jolie-Pitt to Vivienne Marcheline Jolie. A hearing on the matter has been scheduled for November 2.

Growing Pattern Among Jolie-Pitt Children

Vivienne's filing represents a continuation of a broader family trend. Her siblings Maddox and Zahara, ages 24 and 21 respectively, submitted similar petitions earlier this year, with both completing the required four-week publication of their name-change intentions in local newspapers during the summer months. Shiloh, another of the couple's children, completed a formal surname change to Jolie in 2024. Combined, these legal actions signal a significant family shift regarding paternal surname associations.

The court documents filed on Vivienne's behalf listed her reason for the change as "personal," without elaborating further. However, the teenager had already distanced herself professionally from the Pitt surname prior to the formal legal filing. This preliminary separation through professional and social contexts often precedes formal legal petitions in such cases.

Context Within Family Dynamics

Jolie and Pitt met on the set of "Mr. and Mrs. Smith" in 2005, married in 2014, and filed for divorce in 2016 following an incident aboard a private plane. Jolie stated in a 2020 interview with Vogue that she departed the relationship for the "wellbeing" of her family. A representative close to Pitt acknowledged to the BBC that he regretted how family circumstances had unfolded, expressing that while he was "heartbroken," he respected his children's independent decisions regarding their surnames.

The pattern observed among Jolie and Pitt's children reflects broader experiences documented among divorced families, where adult children legally realign their surnames with the parent who served as their primary caregiver or with whom they maintain closer bonds. Such decisions often provide psychological closure and alignment between legal identity and lived family relationships.