A Los Angeles judge granted Vivienne Jolie’s petition to drop “Pitt” from her legal name during a Monday hearing.
Vivienne, 18, filed the paperwork on July 20, just eight days after celebrating her birthday alongside twin brother Knox. Her attorney, Peter Kenneth Levine, appeared remotely for the morning session at Los Angeles Superior Court’s Stanley Mosk Courthouse.
Judge Virginia Keeny presided over the hearing and read aloud the names of approved petitions from the bench. “These are name change petitions, which are going to be granted,” she explained. “That means that I can read the information provided and sign a decree, and you’ll be able to get a copy of the decree in possibly one week in room 112 in the first floor of this building, the Stanley Mosk Courthouse.”
The judge continued, outlining the process for those gathered: “So if you hear your name, you can sign off, and you can get your paperwork in a week. I’m going to read both the last name and also the last four numbers of the case.”
In her initial filing, the teenager cited “personal” reasons for removing her father’s famous surname. The change had been anticipated by those following the family, as Vivienne had already been publicly using only her mother’s last name for more than two years.
That professional shift became visible in May 2024 when Playbill credited her as “Vivienne Jolie” for the Broadway production of “The Outsiders,” which she helped her mother produce. The musical adaptation earned her a producing credit alongside the “Maleficent” star.
Vivienne now becomes the fourth of the former couple’s children to legally sever the “Pitt” name. Her older sister Zahara, 21, completed her own change in September, becoming Zahara Marley Jolie after a Los Angeles judge approved her petition. Their brother Maddox, 25, also legally removed “Pitt” that same month, taking the name Maddox Chivan Jolie.
Shiloh, 20, had been the first to move through the courts, filing on her 18th birthday in May 2024 and receiving approval that August. Meanwhile, Knox, Vivienne’s twin, omitted “Pitt” from his high school diploma earlier this year, though no legal name change has been confirmed for him.
The family also includes Pax, 22, who has not been reported to have filed a similar petition.
The string of name changes unfolds against the backdrop of a deep family fracture that began when Jolie, 51, filed for divorce from Pitt, 62, in September 2016 after two years of marriage. The pair were declared legally single in 2019, but their divorce settlement took eight years to finalize, ultimately concluding in December 2024. The ex-spouses remain entangled in a separate legal dispute over their French winery, Château Miraval.
The estrangement between Pitt and his children has become public through these legal filings and professional credits rather than direct statements from the minors themselves. Vivienne’s court petition, with its spare “personal” justification, followed the pattern set by her siblings of offering minimal public explanation for the symbolic severance.