Ten years to the day after an incident that became a defining moment in Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt’s family history, their eldest son has made a deeply personal change official.

On Monday, Sept. 14, a Los Angeles County Superior Court judge granted 25-year-old Maddox’s request to legally change his name from Maddox Chivan Jolie-Pitt to Maddox Chivan Jolie.

The decision removes Pitt from his surname and makes Maddox the second of Jolie and Pitt’s six children to legally take that step, following his younger sister Shiloh.

For a family whose private relationships have been intensely scrutinized since Jolie and Pitt separated in 2016, the timing carries particular significance. Maddox’s legal name change was approved exactly a decade after the Sept. 14, 2016 private-plane incident that preceded Jolie’s divorce filing by only five days.

Maddox Began the Legal Process Months Earlier

The Sept. 14 ruling did not come suddenly.

Maddox filed his petition for a legal name change on May 28, asking the court to formally shorten Jolie-Pitt to Jolie. Pitt, 62, declined to comment through a representative when the filing became public.

But Maddox had already given a public indication that he was moving away from the hyphenated surname.

Months before the court approved his petition, he appeared in the credits of his mother’s film Couture simply as “Maddox Jolie.”

Maddox worked as an assistant director on the drama, which stars Jolie as an American filmmaker who learns she has breast cancer while in France preparing a video connected to Paris Fashion Week.

That February credit meant Maddox was already professionally identifying himself without Pitt’s surname before pursuing the change through the courts.

He Is Not the Only Jolie-Pitt Child Changing How They Use Their Name

Maddox’s decision is part of a broader shift among several of the former couple’s children.

Jolie, 51, and Pitt share six children: Maddox, 25; Pax, 22; Zahara, 21; Shiloh, 20; and twins Knox and Vivienne, 18.

Shiloh became the first of the siblings known to have legally removed Pitt from her surname.

Born Shiloh Nouvel Jolie-Pitt, she filed a petition on May 27, 2024, the day she turned 18. Her request was granted that August, legally making her Shiloh Jolie.

Vivienne has also publicly used a shorter version of the family name. When she worked with Jolie on the Broadway musical The Outsiders, she was credited in the production’s May 2024 Playbill as Vivienne Jolie rather than Vivienne Jolie-Pitt.

She later filed her own court petition in July seeking to remove Pitt from her surname for what court documents described as personal reasons. Her hearing is scheduled for Nov. 2.

Zahara has taken similar steps.

When she graduated from college on May 17, 2026, the commencement program identified her as Zahara Marley Jolie-Pitt. But when her name was announced as she crossed the stage after earning a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology, she was introduced as “Zahara Marley Jolie.”

In June, only days after Maddox submitted his petition, Zahara officially filed to remove Pitt from her surname as well. Her hearing is scheduled for Sept. 28.

Taken together, those decisions have turned what might otherwise appear to be an administrative change into a highly visible family development.

The Date of Maddox’s Court Victory Is Especially Striking

The calendar adds another layer to Maddox’s case.

His name change was granted on Sept. 14, 2026 — exactly 10 years after a private-plane trip involving Pitt, Jolie and their children became central to the couple’s breakup.

Sources previously said Pitt became verbally abusive and physical with one of the children during the Sept. 14, 2016 flight while other children were present.

Pitt was subsequently investigated on suspicion of child abuse. The FBI later cleared him, and the Los Angeles County Department of Children and Family Services closed its investigation without findings of abuse.

Five days after the flight, Jolie filed for divorce.

What followed was not a quick separation. Their divorce proceedings stretched across years before the marriage was finally legally dissolved in December 2024.

A source connected to Jolie has said there has never been broad public understanding of what prompted her decision to file for divorce or of everything that occurred during the difficult years afterward.

The source also characterized Jolie’s approach as one of deliberate restraint, saying she avoided publicly criticizing the father of her children even as disputes surrounding the former couple continued.

Two Very Different Views of the Family Divide

The children’s surname decisions have also produced sharply contrasting explanations from people close to Jolie and Pitt.

A source close to Pitt argued in July that the distancing was the result of years of alienation and described the situation as a painful consequence of one parent turning children against the other.

Someone in Jolie’s circle strongly rejected that interpretation.

That insider suggested the public does not know the full history behind the children’s decisions and argued that greater knowledge of what they experienced would lead people to view their choices differently. The source also pointed to the children’s decision not to publicly attack either parent as evidence of their restraint.

Neither explanation changes what is increasingly visible through court records and public appearances: several of Jolie and Pitt’s children are choosing not to use their father’s surname, whether legally, professionally or publicly.

Communication With Pitt Is Reportedly Limited

Behind the legal filings is a more personal reality.

A source close to Pitt said there is currently very little communication between him and his children, describing the situation as tragic.

That makes Maddox’s change particularly notable.

As the eldest of the six siblings, he was already an adult by the time his parents’ divorce was finalized. His decision was his own legal petition, submitted at 25 and formally approved by a judge months later.

It also came as other siblings reached adulthood and began making their own choices about how they wanted to be identified.

Shiloh has already completed the process. Maddox has now done the same. Zahara and Vivienne have taken legal steps of their own, with hearings still ahead.

For years, Jolie-Pitt represented one of Hollywood’s most recognizable family names, linking two of the industry’s biggest stars and the six children they raised together.

Now that name is changing, one child at a time.

Maddox’s Sept. 14 court ruling does not explain every private event that led to his decision, nor does it resolve the competing accounts surrounding his parents’ long and painful split.

But it does make one choice unmistakably official.

A decade after the flight that preceded the end of Jolie and Pitt’s marriage, their eldest son is no longer Maddox Jolie-Pitt in the eyes of the law.

He is Maddox Chivan Jolie.