The name printed in a LaGuardia High School graduation program in June 2024 caught the attention of people who had followed one of Hollywood’s most scrutinized families for nearly two decades. It wasn’t “Suri Cruise.” It was “Suri Noelle.”
At the time, some observers assumed it was a professional choice, a soft rebranding ahead of college. Over a year later, voter registration records from Pennsylvania have settled the question. Suri Cruise, the 20-year-old daughter of Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes, has legally dropped the Cruise surname and is now Suri Noelle, confirmed through Pennsylvania voter registration records and court confirmation. The name she chose isn’t random. Rather than adopting Holmes as her last name, Suri opted for Noelle, her mother’s middle name.
For a young woman who has spent much of her life under an intensity of public attention that few people ever experience, the choice carries weight beyond the personal. It’s a legal act that closes one chapter and defines another, taken quietly, without a press release, and confirmed only through the paper trail of civic life.
What Suri Cruise’s Legal Name Actually Is Now
When Suri registered to vote in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania in October 2024 during her freshman year at Carnegie Mellon University, she registered as “Suri Noelle.” Pennsylvania courts confirmed to Page Six that voters must register with their legal name, confirming the change is official. Page Six also confirmed with Pennsylvania court officials that no name change petition was filed in Allegheny County, which strongly suggests the legal process likely took place in New York before Suri relocated to Pittsburgh for college. In New York, legal name change records are either automatically sealed or can be sealed upon request, making it difficult to determine precisely when the change became official.
Monica Mazzei, Chair of Buchalter’s Family Law Group, exclusively told Fox News Digital that Suri, as an adult, can change her name herself, adding: “Katie Holmes has had sole legal custody of her daughter, which means up until Suri’s 18th birthday, she could make all legal decisions without needing Tom’s permission and could have consented to the name change prior if there was a desire.”
The first public sign of the change came at Suri’s June 2024 graduation from LaGuardia High School in New York City, where her graduation pamphlet listed “Suri Noelle” rather than Suri Cruise. While attending LaGuardia, Suri played Morticia Addams in The Addams Family and later portrayed Philoclea in Head Over Heels, and it was in the playbill for that production that audiences first noticed she was being credited as Suri Noelle. The graduation program simply made it impossible to ignore.
A source told Page Six that the choice honored her mother, Katie Holmes, whose middle name is Noelle, and that the decision also reflected Suri’s desire to establish her own identity as she prepared to begin college. The source explained that the then-teen wanted to “avoid the paparazzi,” establish her “own identity” and “start fresh at college.”
A Name Born From a Specific Family Connection
Noelle is the middle name of Suri’s mother, actress Katie Holmes, who divorced Tom Cruise in 2012. Suri, who was given no middle name at birth, has now taken that name as her own last name, creating a direct, visible link to her mother rather than simply erasing the Cruise surname without replacing it with something meaningful.
The symmetry is personal. Holmes has maintained a close relationship with her daughter and spoken publicly about wanting to protect her. Holmes told Glamour in April 2023 that Suri’s overly publicized childhood plays a part in how she raises her daughter today. “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,” Holmes said. In 2024, Holmes shared a photo of a bouquet Suri sent her for her birthday, and Suri has also collaborated creatively with her mother, providing vocals for two of Holmes’s films: 2022’s Alone Together and 2023’s Rare Objects.
The mother-daughter bond has been the defining relationship of Suri’s public life. Following her parents’ divorce in 2012, Suri moved from Los Angeles to New York City with Holmes, who was granted full custody. That geography shaped everything, from the school Suri attended to the career path she’s now pursuing.
The Estrangement Behind the Decision
Suri and Tom Cruise have been estranged since she was approximately seven years old, following her parents’ 2012 divorce. The last public sighting of the father-daughter pair occurred in July 2012 at Disney World, just a month after Holmes filed for divorce.
In a 2013 deposition tied to a defamation lawsuit he filed against a tabloid publisher, Cruise pushed back on suggestions he’d cut Suri out of his life, saying, “The assertion that I ‘abandoned’ Suri after my divorce is patently false.” That same deposition revealed he had not seen his daughter for over 100 days at the time. Cruise continued to cover her education costs under the terms of the settlement, according to prior reporting, though public contact remained essentially nonexistent.
The absence that has defined their relationship was on full display the weekend of Suri’s high school graduation. The same weekend as her ceremony, Tom Cruise was among the guests at Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour at London’s Wembley Stadium on June 22, 2024. No representatives for either Cruise or Holmes responded publicly to questions about the legal name change.
Life as Suri Noelle: Carnegie Mellon and a Growing Career
Suri is studying musical theater in Carnegie Mellon’s School of Drama, a program that has launched the careers of actors including Leslie Odom Jr., Billy Porter, and Zachary Quinto, making it one of the most competitive conservatories in the country.
Page Six reports that the 20-year-old will perform in Midsummer!, a modern adaptation of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, after completing her second year at Carnegie Mellon. The 90-minute production previews in Pittsburgh on July 31 and August 1 before transferring to Scotland for performances at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. The production plays the Bijou at the Assembly Rooms from August 6 through August 19. The Edinburgh Fringe is the world’s largest performing arts festival, drawing tens of thousands of performances across hundreds of venues each August.
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Earlier in 2026, Suri appeared in the staged reading Cosmic Microwave Background at Pittsburgh’s New Hazlett Theater, portraying the character Angel in a one-night-only performance. The New Hazlett listing publicly credited her as Suri Noelle among the cast. She’s been building her resume consistently since arriving at Carnegie Mellon, performing in productions that extend well beyond classroom exercises.
She’s Not the Only One
Suri’s choice places her in a growing group of children with famous fathers who have made the same decision. Shiloh Jolie has officially dropped dad Brad Pitt’s surname. A Los Angeles court granted her name change, with Angelina Jolie’s daughter receiving court approval to drop “Pitt” from her full name and keep Jolie as her last name. She initially filed the petition to make the name change official on May 27, the day she turned 18. Separately, while celebrating her status as a new member of the Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority in November 2023, Zahara, 19, appeared to leave out her dad’s last name when identifying herself, saying “My name is Zahara Marley Jolie.”
When a parent’s name carries the weight of global celebrity, or a complicated personal history, or both, a name change functions as something more than a clerical update. It becomes a public declaration of identity, made through documents and voter rolls rather than social media announcements.
Neither Suri nor her parents have publicly explained the decision to change her surname or commented on the newly surfaced records. The absence of a statement is, in its own way, the point. Suri Noelle is building something under her own name, on her own terms, without asking for anyone’s blessing or commentary.
Her Name, Her Record
A legal name change at 20, carried out without fanfare and confirmed only through a voter registration record, tells a more complete story than any press statement could. Suri Noelle, as she is now legally known, is a sophomore at one of America’s most selective drama programs, weeks away from performing at a major international festival, and living entirely within a life she appears to have chosen deliberately and carefully.
The Suri Cruise legal name change, technically confirmed in 2026 but set in motion well before her high school graduation program was printed, reflects a straightforward reality: she turned 18, exercised her legal right as an adult, and chose the name of the parent who raised her. For anyone tracking this family’s story, that is the detail that matters most.
AI Disclaimer: This article was created with the assistance of AI tools and reviewed by a human editor.
