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Suri Cruise has quietly severed a public tie to her father, legally trading his last name for her mother's middle name. The 20-year-old, now officially known as Suri Noelle, made the switch according to Pennsylvania voter records reviewed by USA TODAY, with Page Six first breaking the news.
She's entering her junior year at Carnegie Mellon University, where she's registered to vote.
Suri didn't file the name change in Pennsylvania, where she's lived since 2024, suggesting the paperwork was likely filed earlier, in New York, where she grew up.
Signs of the shift actually surfaced back in 2024, when "Noelle" appeared in her graduation pamphlet at LaGuardia High School in Manhattan. Katie Holmes was photographed celebrating that milestone, while Tom Cruise, who hasn't been publicly seen with his daughter since the couple's 2012 divorce, was notably absent.
Holmes and Cruise were married from November 2006 to 2012, and Suri was born on April 18, 2006, exactly a year after their first date.
Her early life drew intense tabloid scrutiny, culminating in a 22-page Vanity Fair spread months after her birth, featuring photos by Annie Leibovitz. "When we came to the name Suri, we both loved it," Cruise told the magazine at the time, adding that the name's meaning, "red rose," felt like an unexpected bonus.
Holmes has repeatedly stressed her instinct to shield her daughter from the spotlight, telling Glamour in 2023, "I really like to protect her," and calling parenthood a privilege she doesn't take lightly.
She later pushed back hard against a Daily Mail report claiming Suri had access to a large trust fund, calling the story "completely false" and warning it put "a target on my child's back," a rare public rebuke.
She joins a growing list of celebrity children distancing themselves from famous surnames, including several of Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie's kids.
Vivienne Jolie filed to drop "Pitt" from her name on her 18th birthday last week, following siblings Zahara, Shiloh and Maddox, who made similar changes years earlier.
