Vivienne Jolie-Pitt has filed a petition to legally drop the Pitt surname, court documents show, days after the actor’s daughter turned 18 on Sunday, 12 July 2026.
The 18-year-old asked the Los Angeles County Superior Court to change her name to Vivienne Marcheline Jolie, formally dropping the Pitt half of her surname, as reported by People.
The court papers list the reason for the request simply as “personal”, offering no further detail.
Why Vivienne Jolie-Pitt wants to drop Pitt
The petition does not spell out her motivation beyond that single word, personal, and there is no accompanying interview or public statement. A court hearing on the request has been set down for Monday, 2 November 2026, when a judge is expected to sign off on the change.
This did not come out of nowhere. Vivienne signalled the shift back in 2024, when she was credited simply as Vivienne Jolie in the Broadway playbill for The Outsiders, quietly dropping the Pitt half of her surname long before any legal paperwork.
The Jolie-Pitt children who dropped Pitt
Vivienne is far from the first of the six children to make this move.
Her siblings Shiloh, Zahara and Maddox have each already taken legal steps to drop the Pitt name, part of a wider distancing from their father, actor Brad Pitt, in recent years.
Shiloh, now 20, made headlines in 2024 when she filed to drop Pitt on her own 18th birthday, hiring a lawyer to handle the process. Zahara had used a graduation shout-out and later paperwork to introduce herself under the Jolie name alone.
Swisher Post covered Zahara’s case when she took the same step earlier, formally shedding Pitt in her own name change.
Vivienne’s filing now adds a fourth sibling to that list, leaving the family surname split down the middle between the Jolie and Pitt sides.
What the Jolie-Pitt name change means next
The name changes have played out against a long and bitter divorce between the children’s parents. Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie separated in 2016 and have wrangled over custody and their French wine estate for years, with several of the children publicly siding with their mother.
Each of the four filings shares a pattern. The children waited until they were legally adults, then moved through the courts rather than making noise on social media.
For a family whose every move gets dissected, the quiet paperwork route has become the preferred way to close a chapter.
Barring a surprise objection, the name change should be rubber-stamped at the November hearing, making Vivienne Marcheline Jolie official.
She has offered no public comment on the decision, letting a one-word court filing do the talking for a very private choice.
