Can Brad Pitt stop kids from dropping last name?

Brad Pitt has no legal power to stop his adult children from dropping his surname, and with son Maddox now the latest to file for a name change, that reality is becoming increasingly hard to ignore.

Maddox Jolie-Pitt, 24, filed on 28 May to remove "Pitt" from his name, seeking to be legally known as Maddox Chivan Jolie. 

If approved by a judge, the process itself is relatively straightforward.

Rachael Bennett, a certified family law specialist and senior attorney at Sullivan Law & Associates, broke down the legal reality in an interview.

"For an adult changing your last name, it's actually pretty straightforward, but it does require a formal court order to change your name," she explained. 

"The court's going to set a hearing date and in many cases, the person may have to publish a public notice of the proposed name change in a local newspaper. The judge is going to decide, yes, there's an improper purpose, or no, there's no improper purpose, and then if everything's green lit, the judge just signs off on the petition, and the name change is granted."

Crucially, Pitt has no say in the matter. 

"For an adult child a parent does not have any legal grounds to block the name change just because they don't like it," Bennett said. 

"Once somebody is 18, they can file their own name change petition, and the parent doesn't get any veto power, and really, the court's not going to care about the impact the name change has on the parents, even if a parent may have an emotional reaction to it, they don't have any legal input once their child's an adult."

Maddox is not alone. 

His sister Shiloh, 20, filed a legal petition to drop "Pitt" on her 18th birthday, with the request approved later in 2024. 

Zahara, 21, introduced herself as "Zahara Marley Jolie" during her Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority induction in June 2024, and Vivienne, 17, was credited simply as "Vivienne Jolie" in the Playbill for the Broadway production of The Outsiders, which she worked on.

Pitt, 62, and Jolie, 51, married in 2014 and separated two years later, with a long and contentious legal battle continuing since. 

They share six children in total, Maddox, Pax, 22, Zahara, Shiloh and twins Vivienne and Knox, also 17. 

A source previously shared that Pitt "feels most hurt out of everything that happened with Angie that his children don't want a public association with his last name. It's been very difficult."

Legally, however, there is nothing he can do about it.