Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie‘s daughter Zahara has shortened her once-hyphenated moniker.
The 21-year-old has legally dropped her dad’s surname, with a Los Angeles court granting her request to only have her mom’s last name moving forward.
“After review of the case file, the Court rules as follows: There being no objections, the petition for change of name is granted,” read a court document submitted on Sept. 28 and obtained by E! News. “The Decree is signed and filed. The Petitioner’s name is changed from Zahara Marley Jolie-Pitt to Zahara Marley Jolie.”
E! News has reached out to Brad and Angelina’s reps for comment but hasn’t heard back.
Zahara first filed her name change request in June, nearly one month after graduating from Atlanta’s Spelman College with a Bachelor of Arts in psychology.
She published a notice of her intention in the Los Angeles Daily Journal in July, fulfilling California’s requirement that a name change petition must be publicized in a local newspaper to allow anyone contesting the alternation to submit a written opposition before a final hearing.
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While Zahara’s legal name change has just been made official, she’s been personally using her mother’s surname for years. When she joined the Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority in 2023, she introduced herself in an induction video as Zahara Marley Jolie.
And at her graduation ceremony earlier this year, she was again introduced as Zahara Marley Jolie when she appeared onstage to receive her diploma.
Vivien Killilea/; Maria Moratti/
Zahara is the second of Brad and Angelina’s six kids to have been granted a legal name change, opting to drop the F1 actor’s surname from their monikers. The former couple’s 20-year-old daughter Shiloh was granted such a request in 2024, after filing a petition on her 18th birthday that year.
Since then, her siblings Maddox, 25, and Vivienne, 18, have also made similar moves this year. Approval for their name change requests is currently pending.
For a complete guide to Brad and Angelina’s children, keep reading.
STEFANI REYNOLDS/AFP via Getty Images
Walking through, “I didn’t feel a connection with any of them,” she later told Vanity Fair, until she saw Maddox—born Aug. 5, 2001—lying in a box suspended from the ceiling. Feeling that bond in an instant, she said, “I cried and cried.”
Though the then-26-year-old adopted her eldest son as a single mother, after she began dating future husband Brad Pitt, he started the process to adopt him as well.
Thanks to an interest in his mom’s work, when Angelina directed 2017’s First They Killed My Father, the film adaptation of her friend Loung Ung’s book about the Cambodian genocide by the Khmer Rouge regime, Maddox signed on as executive producer. “I was trying to help wherever I could,”” he told People of the role. As for his boss, aka mom, she’s “fun, funny, and easy to work with,” he said. “She’s a wonder.”
After studying biochemistry at South Korea’s Yonsei University (a choice his mom said she “could not be happier about”), Maddox attended a state dinner at the White House in April 2023 when President Joe Biden and First Lady Dr. Jill Biden hosted South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol and First Lady Kim Keon Hee.
Living with Maddox and sisters Zahara and Shiloh, “suddenly, here he is in a very free situation with new brothers and sisters and a mom and dad,” Angelina continued. “He’s learning English and he’s so loving and he’s wild and free ’cause he suddenly has freedom so he’s a little wild and crazy. But what a tough, remarkable little person.”
With an interest in the family business, Pax voiced the character Yoo in Angelina’s animated 2016 film Kung Fu Panda 3 and served as set photographer on First They Killed My Father before attending the 2018 Golden Globes with his mom.
He also helped decorate Atelier Jolie, a creative fashion collective and alteration company Angelina opened in NYC, and worked in the assistant director department on the Italian set of her film Without Blood.
As Angelina told People of working with both Pax and Maddox, “When a film crew is at its best, it feels like a big family, so it felt natural.”
Like her siblings, Zahara has expressed interest in all facets of her mother’s work, attending red carpets, launching her charitable Zahara Collection jewelry line in collaboration with jeweler Robert Procop in 2019 and making trips to Syrian refugee camps as part of her mom’s efforts with the UNHCR.
In August 2022, Angelina grew emotional while dropping Zahara off at Atlanta’s Spelman College (“I haven’t started crying yet so…hopefully I can hold it together,” she shared in an Instagram video), later returning for the HBCU’s homecoming festivities.
Zahara—who joined the school’s Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority in 2023—has also accompanied the actress on several trips to Washington, D.C. She was by Angelina’s side when she gave a tearful speech promoting the renewal of the Violence Against Women Act in February 2022 and a year later when they met with lawmakers to advocate for the passage of the Justice for All Reauthorization Act of 2022.
She graduated from Spelman in 2026. That same year, a Los Angeles court granted her request to legally drop “Pitt” from her hyphenated “Jolie-Pitt” last name.
Making her red carpet debut at the Unbroken premiere in 2014, Shiloh went on to appear at events for Maleficent: Mistress of Evil, The Breadwinner and Dumbo, the 2018 National Board of Review Awards Gala and the 2021 Eternals red carpet, where she wore Mom’s Dior gown.
“I’m like, ‘Oh my god, wear it and wear it better than me!” Angelina told E!’s Daily Pop of encouraging her kids to raid her closet. “And take it, and it’s your turn, anything.’ I’m that mom.”
In addition to showing interest in Angelina’s humanitarian efforts, Shiloh seems to have taken a few steps into the entertainment industry, spending time at L.A.’s Millennium Dance Complex.
On her 18th birthday in 2024, she submitted a petition at a Los Angeles Court to remove the hyphenated “Pitt” part of her surname to be known as Shiloh Nouvel Jolie. The legal name change was made official months later.
Named for Brad’s grandfather, Hal Knox Hillhouse, Angelina noted that “Knox is a lot like Brad, emotionally and physically.” And, indeed, the pair did bear a striking resemblance while attending the 2015 British motorcycle Grand Prix.
Like older siblings Pax, Zahara and Shiloh, Knox took on a small role in 2016’s Kung Fu Panda 3, voicing the part of Ku Ku. “They were kind of shy,” Jolie told ET. “They don’t really want to be actors, but I didn’t want them to miss the opportunity. They came in, and they had a lot of fun with it.”
Though she nailed her role as the younger version of Elle Fanning’s Aurora in 2014’s Maleficent (“I was actually shocked that she was doing so well she went back and hit her mark! It’s frightening,” Angelina said at the time), the high schooler has since gravitated toward behind-the-scenes roles.
Angelina said that Vivienne was the one to encourage her to help bring an adaptation of Francis Ford Coppola’s 1983 film The Outsiders to Broadway, so the teen ended up serving as a volunteer assistant to her producer mom on the Tony winner.
“She’ll correct me,” Angelina told People of Vivienne, who’s credited in the playbill as Vivienne Jolie. “She’ll say, ‘Didn’t you read the memo? We have to do this, we have to go through this,’ ” Jolie said. “She’s been a really tough assistant. She takes it very, very seriously.”
