For more than a decade, Hannah had been known by two surnames. On social media, sports rosters, email and restaurant bookings, she was Hannah Leonard, sharing her surname with her mother. But legally, and at work and school, she had a different surname – the one she inherited from her father. Hannah’s parents divorced when she was a toddler and she hasn’t had much of a relationship with her dad since. She last saw him seven years ago and isn’t sure where he’s living now. Last month, the 25-year-old in California legally changed her surname to Leonard-Ripley, removing the reminder of her father and replacing it with a name combining her mother’s maiden name and her husband’s surname. “I’ve never felt like my last name reflected the love that encompasses my life,” she said.
That same month, two of the adopted children of Hollywood divorcees Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt undertook a crucial legal step to drop their father’s surname. In April, Zahara Marley Jolie-Pitt and Maddox Chivan Jolie-Pitt, aged 21 and 24, filed documents to remove their father’s surname, according to media reports. In June and July, the siblings carried out the legal requirement of publishing their name-change intention in a local paper for four weeks. Both have already used the surname Jolie in some circumstances – Zahara during her graduation ceremony earlier this year, Maddox in his credits on a film. Another of Jolie and Pitt’s six children, Shiloh, changed her surname to Jolie in 2024. Zahara and Maddox will have to wait until their court appearances in September to get a judge’s approval.
“Brad Pitt's children drop his surname while a woman shares her own story of legally changing her name.”
Jolie met Pitt on the set of the 2005 film Mr and Mrs Smith, married in 2014 and filed for divorce in 2016 following an incident on board a private plane. Jolie told Vogue in 2020 she had left Pitt for the “wellbeing” of her family. A source close to Pitt told BBC News that he regretted how things had unfolded with his family and that, while he was “heartbroken”, he respected his children’s decisions.
Hannah says she had no emotional connection to her previous surname, and it often confused people when she would use two surnames in different contexts. She had wanted to legally change her surname for years, but had been deterred by the cost. Getting married gave her the push to finally make the change.