Following in the footsteps of Shiloh and Maddox, Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt’s daughter, Zahara, has become the third of their children to legally drop her father’s famous surname. Aged 21, Zahara’s petition to a California court was approved this month. Her sibling Vivienne, 18, has reportedly also filed a petition to do the same. Zahara isn’t the only famous offspring to do so, either. Earlier this year, Suri, 20, daughter of Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes, was reportedly going by “Suri Noelle”, after her mother’s middle name. A few years ago, after becoming estranged from Elon Musk and coming out as trans, Vivian Wilson also dropped her father’s last name. In fact, Angelina Jolie herself dropped the surname of her father, Voight, apparently in part due to their own volatile relationship.
For people with strong or positive relationships with their families, the decision to permanently sever your identity from that of either of your parents can be difficult to understand. In the US, it’s a decision that also comes with a lot of legal complications, as I have learned first-hand from trans friends of mine. In the UK, where a name change is as simple as a deed poll and a new passport, it’s still a convoluted and often emotionally taxing process. You have to notify your bank, landlord, doctor, dentist, employer and anyone else who uses your legal moniker. Those related to your surname might be offended, or struggle to adjust to your new name, or not understand why you made that decision to begin with.
It’s a decision that isn’t to be taken lightly – but for me, it was one of the best I ever made. Ten years ago, I sat in my friend’s living room and got her and her then-boyfriend to sign my deed poll. By then, it had taken me many years to decide to cut my legal surname and revert to the name I was born with, my first and middle names: Marianne Eloise. I like those two names – for all their mistakes, they’re the best thing my parents ever gave me.
For a time, I had my birth father’s surname, but he and my mother split up when I was a few years old, and I never really knew him. When I was seven, my mother married my stepdad, and she legally changed my surname to his. For a long time, I was proud to have his surname. Even after they split up, we remained close, and I called him dad for over a decade. He was the only dad I had ever known. But then, when I was 16, he started dating a girl who was just a year older than me. A year later, he cut off all contact, wanting to start fresh with her. I, of course, found this new life of his both traumatic and embarrassing. I didn’t want to be associated with it.
Walking around with his surname didn’t matter much, for a while. But then I started to write publicly, and I always used “Marianne Eloise” as my byline. It was easy enough to compartmentalise the two names, but when employers and clients found out my “real” name through legal paperwork, they would occasionally use it. It was painful seeing that surname that I no longer associated with, right there on the screen; I felt as if I was living two lives. Every time I had to hear or see that name, I thought about everything my dad had put me through. Choosing a new legal name was in part a practical decision, one made to simplify paperwork, but it also felt incredibly empowering.
There is no shame in growing up with abusive, neglectful or estranged parents. If you are estranged from or have a difficult relationship with your family, it’s not your fault. But I did feel some shame in walking around with the name of someone who I had once considered my dad, but who had since abandoned me for a different life. It wasn’t to hold, but I didn’t want to carry around that sort of weight.
It wasn’t just my own paperwork that changed: first, the vet had to start calling my dog by my new surname, which felt silly at first, but made me feel proud and connected. Then, when my husband and I married in 2022, he legally changed his name to Smith-Eloise. Seeing that name on our family paperwork gives me a feeling of pride that far outweighs how jarring it is hearing my dad’s name called out by mistake at the dentist. We’ve spent so many centuries normalising women automatically taking their husband’s last names without even thinking about it, and I love that we’ve started our own family tradition. It’s made my own name feel more like a solid foundation. Marianne Eloise is the only name I have always had, and it is the only one that feels like mine when someone says it.
It’s easy, of course, to see anything that celebrities do as some sort of trend or overblown story for a hungry news cycle. I just don’t think that’s what is happening here. I have walked around with the discomfort that comes from having someone else’s name attached to my own when it doesn’t feel right. I have also walked around, for a decade now, with the euphoria that comes from knowing you’ve made your own identity and place in the world. I would encourage anyone to make that choice if it feels right to them, famous or otherwise.
