Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt’s Daughter Zahara Becomes the Third Child to Officially Drop the Pitt Surname

Zahara Jolie has officially completed a legal process that has now played out three times within the same family. According to court records reviewed by People, a California judge approved her petition on Monday, September 28, to legally remove the surname “Pitt,” making her the third of Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt’s six children to formally drop their father’s last name from their legal identity.

What Actually Changed, Legally Speaking

Zahara, 21, will now go by Zahara Marley Jolie rather than her previous legal name, Zahara Marley Jolie-Pitt. She had reportedly already been using the shorter version of her name publicly for some time before the court made it official this week.

The Third of Six Siblings to Make This Specific Move

Zahara joins her siblings Shiloh and Maddox in having completed this exact legal process. Shiloh’s name change was granted back in 2024, after she filed the petition on her 18th birthday that May. Maddox’s own change became official earlier this same month, on September 14, 2026, shifting his legal name from Maddox Chivan Jolie-Pitt to Maddox Chivan Jolie.

A Fourth Sibling’s Petition Is Already Moving Through Court

The couple’s younger daughter, Vivienne, has also filed a petition seeking the same change, requesting to be known as Vivienne Marcheline Jolie rather than Vivienne Marcheline Jolie-Pitt. Her hearing is reportedly scheduled for November 2. That leaves Pax and Knox as the only two of the six children who have not taken this same public, legal step so far.

The Family Background Behind the Story

Jolie and Pitt share six children together: Maddox, Pax, Zahara, Shiloh, and twins Vivienne and Knox. The couple split in 2016, and Jolie filed for divorce that same year following a disputed incident aboard a private flight, which led to a Los Angeles County Department of Child and Family Services investigation into Pitt. That investigation concluded without any criminal charges being filed against him. The couple were declared legally single under a bifurcated judgment in 2019, and their divorce was ultimately finalized in December 2024, following a lengthy legal process that also touched on the couple’s shared French winery.

Why This Keeps Making Entertainment Headlines

Stories about long-running celebrity families tend to resurface repeatedly in entertainment coverage precisely because each new development, even a comparatively small legal filing like a surname change, adds another data point to a narrative the public has followed for close to a decade. For readers trying to separate confirmed court-record facts from recycled speculation across dozens of outlets covering the same story, it’s worth checking a story’s sourcing the same way you’d check any other piece of writing before treating it as settled — a habit covered in more general terms in our guide to spotting weak or unreliable online sourcing, which applies just as well to entertainment reporting as it does to anything else online.

How Name-Change Petitions Like This Actually Work

• An adult child files a formal petition with the relevant county court, typically once they turn 18
• The petition proposes the new legal name and the reason, when one is disclosed, for the change
• A judge reviews the petition and either approves or denies it at a scheduled hearing
• Once approved, the new legal name applies to official documents going forward

This is a standard legal process available to any adult, regardless of parentage, and family courts across the United States handle broadly similar petitions on a routine basis, entirely separate from whatever public attention a specific case happens to attract.

What Comes Next

With Vivienne’s hearing still pending in November, this particular story is very likely not finished. Whether Pax or Knox eventually take the same step remains unknown, and neither has publicly signaled an intention to do so as of this writing. For continuing entertainment coverage of stories like this one as they develop, outlets such as People’s celebrity news section remain a useful, frequently updated reference point.

A Closer Look at Each Sibling’s Timeline

How Zahara Joined the Family

Zahara was adopted by Angelina Jolie from Ethiopia as an infant, with Pitt later formally adopting her as well and giving her his surname. She was reportedly the first of the six siblings to begin using just “Jolie” publicly, doing so in 2023 while being inducted into a sorority during her college years, well before this week’s court filing made the change legally official.

Why Public Records Matter More Than Aggregated Rumor

A story like this one gets picked up and reworded by dozens of outlets within hours, and not every version sticks closely to what court records actually show. The most reliable versions of this story consistently point back to the same verifiable anchor: a judge’s approval on a specific, checkable date, tied to an actual court filing, rather than anonymous commentary about motive or family dynamics that can’t be independently confirmed.

The Broader Custody and Divorce Context

The Jolie-Pitt divorce, spanning close to a decade from the initial 2016 filing to its December 2024 finalization, became one of the more closely tracked celebrity legal proceedings of the past ten years, extending well beyond custody into disputes over shared business interests, including the French winery the couple once owned together. That extended legal backdrop is part of why each individual development involving one of their six children, even a comparatively routine surname petition, continues to draw broad media coverage years after the original split.

What This Pattern Suggests, and What It Doesn’t

Three of six siblings independently pursuing the same legal change is a genuine pattern worth noting factually. What it does not do, on its own, is confirm any specific motive for any individual sibling’s decision — court records document the legal outcome, not the private reasoning behind it, and outlets that fill that gap with unnamed sources should be read with that limitation in mind.

Frequently Asked Questions

How many of Jolie and Pitt’s children have dropped the Pitt surname?

Three, as of this report: Shiloh, Maddox, and now Zahara. A fourth, Vivienne, has filed a petition with a hearing scheduled for November 2.

Did Zahara explain her reason for the name change?

The specific reasoning behind Zahara’s petition has not been publicly detailed in the court records reviewed by People.

Are Pax and Knox expected to do the same?

Neither has publicly filed a similar petition or commented on any intention to do so as of this report.

The Bottom Line

Zahara Jolie’s finalized name change is a small legal update that carries outsized attention because of the family it involves, and it continues a pattern that now includes three of Jolie and Pitt’s six children, with a fourth petition already scheduled for a November hearing. For more entertainment and business news coverage, browse our Entertainment section.