Shiloh Jolie at 20: Inside the Jolie-Pitt Children's Mass Rejection of Brad Pitt's Surname

Happy birthday, Shiloh — and what a milestone it is. The daughter of Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt turns 20 this year, and with her dance career increasingly grabbing the spotlight, she's very much forging her own identity. But it's a decision she made on her very 18th birthday that continues to send shockwaves through one of Hollywood's most closely watched families. Born Shiloh Nouvel Jolie-Pitt, she filed a petition on the day she turned 18 in May 2024 to legally remove "Pitt" from her surname. By August of that year, the request had been approved, and she has been Shiloh Jolie ever since. It was, at the time, the most formal and deliberate name change among all six of the Jolie-Pitt children.

Now her eldest brother has followed suit — and then some. Court documents obtained by E! News confirm that Maddox Chivan Jolie-Pitt, 24, has formally filed to become Maddox Chivan Jolie, legally erasing his father's surname once and for all. Maddox had already been quietly sidestepping the Pitt name in professional circles — he was credited simply as Maddox Jolie when he worked as an assistant director on his mother's film Couture, and that same name appeared in production notes at the Toronto International Film Festival in September 2025. The legal filing merely makes permanent what had already become his reality.

Maddox and Shiloh are far from the only ones. Zahara Jolie — born Zahara Jolie-Pitt — introduced herself as Zahara Marley Jolie when she joined the Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority at Spelman College in 2023, and was addressed by the same name at her graduation ceremony earlier this month. Meanwhile, Vivienne Jolie was credited as Vivienne Jolie in the 2024 Playbill for Broadway production The Outsiders, on which she collaborated with her mother. That leaves Pax, 22, and twins Knox and Vivienne — though Vivienne has clearly already made her preference known. Of the six children Jolie, 50, and Pitt, 62, share, the drift away from the Pitt name is now unmistakeable.

What makes this all the more fascinating is that, despite growing up in the most photographed family on the planet, Angelina Jolie insists her children have little appetite for fame. Speaking at the 2025 Santa Barbara Film Festival, she was candid about their feelings towards life in the public eye.

It's a sentiment that adds a poignant layer to the name changes. For Shiloh, Maddox, Zahara and Vivienne, shedding the Pitt surname appears less about making a statement and more about quietly, deliberately, choosing who they want to be — on their own terms. Jolie herself set the precedent long ago, having dropped her father Jon Voight's surname early in her career. It seems the apple doesn't fall far from the tree.