Zahara Marley Jolie has legally dropped “Pitt” from her name, becoming the latest of Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie’s children to formally remove their father’s surname.

The 21-year-old now legally goes by Zahara Marley Jolie, rather than Zahara Marley Jolie-Pitt, after a California judge approved her petition, according to court documents obtained by PEOPLE.

Zahara filed the petition in April. Her legal name change follows similar steps taken by some of her siblings amid the long-running family tensions surrounding Jolie and Pitt’s divorce.

The development does not, by itself, establish why Zahara chose to change her name. Neither she nor her representatives have publicly attributed the decision to a specific reason.

What happened to Zahara Jolie’s name?

Zahara petitioned a California court in April to remove “Pitt” from her legal name.

The court has now approved the request, meaning her legal name is officially Zahara Marley Jolie.

The change is separate from the informal ways some of Pitt and Jolie’s children have previously used their names in public.

For example, Zahara has been publicly known as Zahara Jolie in some settings. A court-approved name change, however, formally changes the name appearing on her legal records.

Zahara is not the first sibling to drop “Pitt”

Several of Jolie and Pitt’s children have taken steps to use Jolie without the “Pitt” surname.

The family has six children:

• Maddox Chivan
• Pax Thien
• Zahara Marley
• Shiloh Nouvel
• Knox Léon
• Vivienne Marcheline

Shiloh has publicly used Jolie rather than Jolie-Pitt, while Maddox has also completed a legal name change.

Vivienne has separately petitioned to remove “Pitt” from her legal name.

Maddox also completed his legal name change

Maddox Chivan Jolie-Pitt, the couple’s eldest child, also went through the legal process to remove Pitt from his surname.

According to the court documents cited by PEOPLE, Maddox filed a petition after Zahara. Legal notices were subsequently published in the Los Angeles Daily Journal as required under California’s name-change procedure.

His legal name was later changed from Maddox Chivan Jolie-Pitt to Maddox Chivan Jolie.

The timing means both Zahara and Maddox have now completed formal legal name changes.

What about Vivienne Jolie?

Vivienne Marcheline Jolie-Pitt has also taken legal steps to remove “Pitt” from her name.

She filed a petition in Los Angeles County Superior Court in July seeking to change her name to Vivienne Marcheline Jolie.

Her case is reportedly still pending.

Vivienne had already used Jolie professionally before filing the petition. In 2024, she was credited as “Vivienne Jolie” in the playbill for The Outsiders, the Broadway musical on which she worked with her mother.

That public use, however, was not the same as a court-approved legal name change.

Shiloh has also used the Jolie surname

Shiloh Nouvel Jolie-Pitt has also publicly dropped “Pitt” from her name.

In 2024, she took steps to change her name to Shiloh Nouvel Jolie. Like her siblings, the change has attracted attention because it comes years after Jolie and Pitt’s highly publicized divorce.

However, it is important not to assume that every child who uses “Jolie” publicly has gone through exactly the same legal process.

Public or professional use of a surname and a court-approved legal name change are separate matters.

Why did Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt divorce?

Jolie filed for divorce from Pitt in September 2016, bringing an end to their marriage of just over two years and a relationship that had lasted more than a decade.

The split followed an incident on a private flight involving the couple and their children. Allegations concerning Pitt’s behavior toward members of the family subsequently became part of legal and public disputes surrounding the divorce.

Pitt denied allegations of abuse.

The FBI investigated an incident involving Pitt and the children aboard the aircraft but ultimately did not pursue federal charges. The Los Angeles County Department of Children and Family Services also investigated allegations concerning the family.

Because the allegations have been disputed and the investigations did not result in criminal charges against Pitt, they should not be presented as established findings of abuse.

What has happened between Jolie and Pitt since the divorce?

The divorce proceedings became one of Hollywood’s most prolonged family-law disputes.

Jolie and Pitt eventually reached a divorce settlement in 2019, although disputes involving their children and other matters continued for years.

The former couple also became involved in separate litigation concerning Château Miraval, their French winery and estate.

Their six children are now adults or approaching adulthood. Maddox is 25, Pax is 22, Zahara is 21, Shiloh is 20, and twins Knox and Vivienne are 18.

As the children have grown older, several have increasingly established independent public identities.

What does Zahara’s name change mean?

Legally, the immediate effect is straightforward: Zahara’s official name is now Zahara Marley Jolie.

It does not, by itself, establish a particular position about her relationship with either parent.

A person’s decision to change a surname can have many personal, professional or family-related motivations. Unless Zahara publicly explains her decision, claims about her reasons remain speculation.

The timing is notable because several of her siblings have also chosen to use or seek the Jolie surname, but each child’s circumstances and decisions should be treated separately.

A legal name change is different from dropping a surname socially

There are two distinctions worth keeping in mind:

Using a name publicly:
A person can use a different surname in professional, educational or social settings without changing their legal documents.

Changing a name legally:
A court-approved petition changes the person’s official legal identity and allows the new name to be used on government and other formal records.

Zahara’s latest development falls into the second category.

What did Brad Pitt say about his children?

Pitt has generally kept details of his relationship with his children private.

He has also rarely commented publicly on individual decisions by his children to use the Jolie surname.

Reports about his personal struggles following the divorce have received renewed attention, including comments he made in an August interview about a difficult period in his life.

However, those comments should not be interpreted as an explanation for Zahara’s name change unless Pitt or Zahara directly connects the two.

What happens next?

For Zahara, the legal process is now complete. She is officially Zahara Marley Jolie.

For Vivienne, the situation is different because her petition remains pending.

The developments involving the siblings can be summarized as follows:

The different statuses are important because reports that “all” of Jolie and Pitt’s children have legally dropped Pitt’s surname would go beyond the available evidence.

The bigger picture

Zahara’s legal name change is the latest development in a family story that has remained in the public eye for years.

But the court’s decision establishes only the legal fact of the name change. It does not provide a public explanation for Zahara’s personal reasons, nor does it resolve the broader history of the Jolie-Pitt family’s disputes.

For now, the clearest development is simple: Zahara Marley Jolie is her legal name, after a California judge approved her request to remove “Pitt.”