Zahara Jolie-Pitt, 21, has filed a petition asking a judge to legally change her name to Zahara Jolie and a hearing on the motion is scheduled for 28 September.
The filing, which asks the court to remove the hyphenated Pitt from her legal surname, formalizes a step Jolie-Pitt has already signaled in public: she introduced herself as Zahara Marley Jolie during her 2023 Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority induction at Spelman College in Atlanta and omitted Pitt when she graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in psychology in May.
The petition is a straightforward request: the petitioner seeks a court order replacing the current name Zahara Jolie-Pitt with Zahara Jolie. The scheduled 28 September hearing is the next procedural milestone at which a judge will rule on whether to grant that request.
Jolie-Pitt’s public use of Zahara Marley Jolie precedes the filing. At Spelman in 2023 she used that name during the Alpha Kappa Alpha induction ceremony, and she likewise did not use the Pitt portion of her surname at her May graduation—facts the filing echoes and that make the legal motion less surprising than it might otherwise be.
But the paperwork also underscores a friction: despite her prior public use of Jolie, the change remains incomplete until a judge signs off. The court date on 28 September will determine whether the informal public identity she has adopted becomes her legal name.
For a public figure, the difference between what a person uses in social and academic settings and what a court recognizes is practical and final. The filing converts a personal choice already visible at a sorority induction and a graduation into a formal legal question for a judge to resolve.
The immediate stakes are procedural: if the judge grants the motion at the 28 September hearing, Zahara Jolie will become the legal name on her records; if the judge denies it, Jolie-Pitt would retain the hyphenated surname pending any appeal or further filings. The filing does not include additional conditions or complications; the hearing will focus on whether the statutory criteria for a name change are met.
For now, the timeline is clear. Jolie-Pitt has asked the court to recognize Zahara Jolie, she has already used that version publicly at Spelman and at her graduation, and a judge is set to hear the motion on 28 September. Whether the court will approve the petition that day is the single unresolved question left by the filing: the judge’s decision at that hearing will determine whether the name she has been using publicly becomes her legal name.
