One of the most famous last names on Earth is gone from one of Hollywood’s most-watched daughters, and the paper trail shows she replaced it with a quiet tribute to the parent who raised her. The reveal came through Pennsylvania public records: when Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes’ daughter registered to vote in Allegheny County in October 2024, she did so as Suri Noelle.
The state now requires voters to register under their legal name, and court officials confirmed as much to Page Six, which broke the story, meaning the change is official. Entertainment Weekly reviewed the records as well. Noelle is Katie Holmes’ middle name.
The 20-year-old has been telegraphing the move for two years. Her June 2024 graduation program at LaGuardia High School listed her as Suri Noelle, and the name appeared again on the casting sheet of her senior play, where she starred as Morticia Addams. Because no petition was filed in Pennsylvania, the paperwork was likely completed in New York, where name change records are routinely sealed, before she left for college.
The name she dropped belongs to a father she reportedly has not had a relationship with in over a decade. Cruise, 64, has not been publicly photographed with Suri since 2012, the year his divorce from Holmes ended a marriage that began with a couch-jumping declaration on Oprah, a rift widely reported to trace back to the split and Holmes’ break from the Church of Scientology.
The name she chose tells the other half of the story. Holmes, 47, has spent years shielding her only child. “What has been really important for me with my daughter, because she was so visible at a young age, is I really like to protect her,” she told Glamour in 2023, adding: “I’m very grateful to be a parent, to be her parent. She’s an incredible person.“
Suri also joins a generational wave: Shiloh Jolie filed to drop “Pitt” on her 18th birthday, and three of her siblings have since followed suit.
A New Name and a New Spotlight
Online, the thread quickly collapsed into a war over her father, most of it unprintable, but between the trenches a different conversation surfaced. “and with my next trick i’ll be ditching my father’s last name in favour of my mother’s maiden name like so many have before me,” one user shared, while another joked about the growing wave: “Brad Pitt drops his last name to be in solidarity with the rest of his family.” One reply landed quieter than the rest: “i find that sad. she’s so similar to him.“
The timing is fitting, because Suri Noelle is about to be a name on playbills. Raised by Holmes in New York, away from Hollywood, she trained at LaGuardia’s famed performing arts program before landing a spot in Carnegie Mellon’s School of Drama. The rising junior stars in Midsummer!, a contemporary spin on A Midsummer Night’s Dream, opening Friday before the production heads to the Edinburgh Festival Fringe for a monthlong run in August.
The most photographed baby of the 2000s spent her childhood defined by a famous name. Now she finds out what the one she picked can do.
