Nicolas Cage belongs in the headline only because the story turns on a surname, and Zahara Marley Jolie-Pitt and Maddox Chivan Jolie-Pitt filed documents in April to remove Pitt from theirs. The change is not finished yet; both are due back in September for a judge to decide whether to approve it.
In April, the two filings put a legal step behind a family shift that has been visible for months. Zahara used Jolie during her graduation ceremony earlier this year, and Maddox used Jolie in his film credits, so the paperwork followed public signs that both had already started using the shorter name.
June and July notices
In June and July, Zahara Marley Jolie-Pitt and Maddox Chivan Jolie-Pitt published their name-change intention in a local paper for four weeks. That notice period is the part that pushes the request from private preference into a formal process, and it is why September matters: the judge is not rubber-stamping a nickname but weighing a legal change that has already been advertised.
In 2024, Shiloh changed her surname to Jolie, which places these filings in a wider family pattern rather than a one-off gesture. Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie met on the set of Mr and Mrs Smith in 2005, married in 2014, and Jolie filed for divorce in 2016 after an incident on board a private plane. By 2020, Jolie said she had left Pitt for the wellbeing of her family.
Hannah and Maggie
Hannah, a California resident, changed her surname last month to Leonard-Ripley after living with two surnames for more than a decade. She said, “I've never felt like my last name reflected the love that encompasses my life,” and added, “And I wanted to make sure that my name reflected that. My mother's love and also my husband's love are very abundant and so important to me.”
Hannah last saw her father seven years ago, and she had wanted the legal change for years but had been deterred by the cost. Maggie, from Lincolnshire, said she had no emotional connection to her previous surname and that her parents split up when she was a child. Those examples make the Jolie-Pitt filings easier to read: for some people, a surname is not branding, it is a record of where they do and do not belong.
September for Jolie
A source close to Pitt said he was heartbroken and respected his children's decisions, which sits uneasily beside filings that remove his surname from their names. Dr Harry Parkin, a University of Chester lecturer, put the point more plainly: “Surnames have a close connection to identity.”
The September court appearance is the practical checkpoint. If the judge approves the requests, Zahara and Maddox move from public usage to legal use; if not, the paperwork stalls and the shorter name remains a public signal rather than the law on the page. For readers tracking the family split, the only real answer now is whether the court turns those April filings into a final change.
