Hollywood superstar Tom Cruise and his ex-wife Katie Holmes’s daughter, Suri Cruise, has officially completed the process of changing her surname. The once distant relationship between Suri and her father has led her to legally abandon the “Cruise” surname and adopt her mother’s middle name, “Noelle,” as her new family name, officially cutting ties with her father.
According to public records obtained by the American media outlet Page Six, Suri Cruise registered as a voter in Pennsylvania while studying at Carnegie Mellon University in October 2024. Her registered name is now “Suri Noelle.” Pennsylvania regulations require voters to register using their legal names, confirming that “Suri Noelle” is now her legal name. It’s believed that she had already completed the name change process in New York before heading to Pennsylvania for her studies.
At 20 years old, Suri has been under the spotlight since a young age due to her beauty and being a celebrity offspring. Despite reports two years ago that she had dropped the surname “Cruise,” her father Tom Cruise has been paying her annual tuition of $65,000 while she is in university.
As reported by the Daily Mail, two years ago Suri moved from the three-story apartment she shared with her mother in New York to the student dorms at Carnegie Mellon University. It is a private university in Pennsylvania, where Suri is rumored to be studying fashion or performing arts.
Suri officially started school on August 26, 2024, and neither she nor her mother had to pay tuition fees as Tom Cruise is still financially supporting her through her college education, as per the agreement signed during his divorce from Katie Holmes. The agreement states that Tom Cruise is responsible for Suri’s “medical, dental, health insurance, education, including college tuition, and other expenses related to extracurricular activities.” Katie is the sole guardian of Suri, and Tom pays her $400,000 in child support each month until Suri turns 18.
In fact, Suri has been using the surname “Noelle” in recent years. At her high school graduation in 2024, she was listed in the ceremony program as “Suri Noelle.” Sources reveal that she did this as a tribute to her mother, as “Noelle” is Katie Holmes’s middle name, and also as a way to avoid paparazzi attention and establish her own identity.
Tom Cruise’s daughter, Suri Cruise, and Brad Pitt’s daughter were both born under intense media scrutiny in Hollywood, similar to the prophecy of the stars’ offspring causing a sensation. Interestingly, these two “powerful celebrity offspring” who were once in the spotlight for their famous fathers have made identical significant decisions upon reaching adulthood: officially breaking ties with their fathers by dropping their surnames.
Suri Cruise, born in 2006, was hailed as the “first daughter of Hollywood.” Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes kept her well-protected, not revealing her appearance for several months after her birth, sparking a frenzy among paparazzi worldwide. It wasn’t until she appeared on the cover of Vanity Fair at five months old that her image was publicly revealed, causing a global rush to purchase that issue of the magazine.
Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie’s biological children also faced intense media scrutiny at birth. When Shiloh was born in 2006, her first baby photos were sold to People magazine for a record $4.1 million; when the twins, including their daughter Vivienne, were born in 2008, the rights to the photos fetched a staggering $14 million, all donated to charity.
With their parents’ divorces and family turmoil, these two former child prodigies made the simultaneous choice to shed their fathers’ spotlight and hide their globally sensational surnames in legal or public settings after turning 18. Netizens have expressed their sentiments during discussions on “gratitude for birth versus nurturing love,” saying, “Even Hollywood superstars have their own difficult family stories.”