Maddox Jolie-Pitt Legally Drops "Pitt" From His Name

Maddox Jolie-Pitt is now legally Maddox Chivan Jolie. A Los Angeles judge granted his name-change petition on Monday, September 14, with no objections filed in the case. The 25-year-old appeared remotely with his attorney, Peter Kenneth Levine, before Judge Virginia Keeny at Stanley Mosk Courthouse, roughly four months after he first filed the request in May.

He isn’t the first of the Jolie-Pitt children to make this move. Several of his siblings have also dropped“Pitt”from their surnames, and Maddox and his sister Zahara took out the newspaper notices California requires when they filed their petitions. For a family that’s been in the spotlight for decades, the legal paperwork has become just the latest chapter in a long-running story.

At the end of the day, a 25-year-old decided how he wants to be known, and a judge signed off on it. That’s about as simple as it gets. What do you think? Should name changes in famous families stay private, or is it fair game once you’re in the public eye?