11 Nepo Babies Who Quietly Changed Their Names

Being born into Hollywood with a famous last name is like a golden ticket to fame. Or so it would seem from the outside. Often, family connections can tie a nepo baby down just as intensely as they pick them up, especially if they follow their kin's footsteps into show business. From preconceptions of talent to speculation around their personal lives, an identifiable surname comes with a lot of baggage that can weigh a celebrity down, even before they've delivered their first act behind a microphone or on screen. 

The pursuit of independence, however, is not the only reason many nepo kids choose to eschew their famous surnames. Sometimes, fractured family dynamics or sentimental reasons motivate these celebrities to change their names. A lot of times, these switcheroos happen privately and are made public only inadvertently when the press catches a whiff of a story; in other situations, the name changes occurred long before these celebrities became household names. 

Here are 11 nepo babies who quietly changed their names and what pushed them toward these dramatic revisions. 

Privileged as they are, growing up in the shadow of a famous parent can be hard for a nepo baby, especially if they want to make a mark in showbiz on their own terms. That is part of the reason Elle King, daughter of "Saturday Night Live" alum Rob Schneider, jumped at the opportunity to change her name from Tanner Elle Schneider just as she turned 18. 

"I am my own person," the "Ex's & Oh's" singer told ABC News. "I worked really hard and I did everything myself ... I took that name because I wanted to be myself." Sure enough, she successfully managed to carve an independent music career away from her dad's comedy legacy. She was, however, unable to escape the glare of media attention, which continued to link her to Schneider, especially in light of their complicated relationship. 

After her parents' brief marriage and divorce, King was raised singlehandedly by her mother London King, who was a model and whose last name she adopted when she came of legal age. In interviews, she claimed to have endured a difficult upbringing with her dad, who was absent for the most part but was hard on her for her weight and tattoos, and even forgot her birthdays. "I don't want to be associated with him ... He's just not nice," she said on the "Dumb Blonde" podcast. "I disagree with a lot of the things that he says." 

A lot of people just getting started in films would kill to have (and flaunt) an A-list pedigree that associates them with the uppermost echelons of Hollywood. Not Nicolas Cage. Despite belonging to the revered Coppola family of filmmakers, Cage eschewed this distinction early in his career, which began in 1982 with "Fast Times at Ridgemont High" — the only film that credits him under his family name. 

The legacy that trailed Cage brought him immense, unwarranted attention on the sets of his debut film, not to mention the inherent pressure of performance it came with. During auditions for "Valley Girl," his second film, the young star tried a new last name on for size. "It's a combination of Luke Cage from 'Marvel' comics, it was a character I liked ... and John Cage, the avant-garde composer," he explained on Wired. 

Sure enough, the experiment worked in his favor, and director Martha Coolidge, unbeknownst to Cage's heritage but certain of his talent, cast him in the lead. "As soon as I went into the casting office under a new name and they didn't know that there was a connection and I got the part, I was like, 'I can really do this.' I felt liberated," he told The Talks, noting that he legally still went by his original surname.

Meryl Streep and Don Gummer built a large family in their time together as a couple. While a majority of the Gummer siblings are easy to identify — given the distinct last name they have inherited from their sculptor father — one name sticks out from the four-member brood: Louisa Jacobson. An actor like her sisters and legendary Oscar-winning mother, Jacobson is also a part of the world of showbiz, albeit sometimes as a discreet presence. 

Notwithstanding the sharp features she shares with the rest of her family, it took audiences a minute to register that it was Streep's daughter they were looking at when Jacobson rose to prominence with a starring role in HBO's "The Gilded Age." The credits for the drama series, which first premiered in 2022, didn't let this little nugget of trivia on either, considering that the actor has eschewed her family title and goes professionally by her first and middle names.

It is widely acknowledged that Jacobson's decision to drop Gummer from her name stemmed chiefly from requisites set by the Screen Actors Guild, which advises new members against choosing titles that are already in use within the industry. Unluckily for her, there was already a British actor and voiceover artist named Louisa Gummer, who had claimed that stage name and been active under it since the 2000s. So in a bid to avoid confusion, Jacobson made a subtle but practical tweak to her name and powered through. 

As the daughter of Oscar-winning legend Jon Voight, Angelina Jolie was born into Hollywood royalty. But the significance of her inheritance did not hold much ground in the face of complicated family dynamics, which led to Jolie parting with her father's name when she began her showbiz career. The "Girl, Interrupted" star was a child of divorce and, from a young age, shared a strained relationship with Voight. 

In the absence of their father, Jolie and her brother James Haven were raised by their mother Marcheline Bertrand, who was also an actor and — contrary to popular presumption that pegs Voight as the influence — was the real inspiration behind Jolie's decision to pursue acting. Though she had made her debut as a child star in "Lookin' to Get Out" on the back of the Voight name, Jolie dropped the association once she kick-started her career independently in the '90s, going by her first and middle names. 

As her estrangement from Voight continued, Jolie moved to make the change permanent in 2002 by applying for a legal removal of her father's name from her own. That was also the year she became a mother for the first time and, in the process, issued a statement touching upon her broken relationship with Voight: "After all these years, I have determined that it is not healthy for me to be around my father, especially now that I am responsible for my own child" (via Hello! magazine). 

Jolie couldn't have known it at the time, but decades after she changed her name, her daughter Shiloh Jolie would follow in her footsteps of opting for a fresh identity — and under similar tragic circumstances, no less. The third child of Angelina and Brad Pitt, Shiloh, gifted herself a new name on her 18th birthday in 2024, dropping "Pitt" completely. 

In a statement to the Los Angeles Times, Shiloh's lawyer called the change "an independent and significant decision following painful events," likely referencing the context of the messy Brangelina divorce it happened under. Shiloh's relationship with her dad Brad Pitt, took a nosedive after the celebrity family began coming apart in 2016, amid troubling accusations of physical assault and abuse against the "Fight Club" actor. 

"Pitt choked one of the children and struck another in the face," NBC News reported, quoting court filings. "At one point, he poured beer on Jolie; at another, he poured beer and red wine on the children." There was some apparent attempt at repair between the dad-daughter pair, but their estrangement only seems to have grown in recent years. Shiloh, who has gone by other names like John in her youth, also appears to be experimenting with the nickname Shi, which she debuted at a fashion event in Los Angeles in 2025. 

Norah Jones' name doesn't give away the famous parentage that trails it. She is the daughter of late Indian sitar maestro Pandit Ravi Shankar, whose tall musical legacy she is carrying forward today as a 10-time Grammy-winning artist. Her departure from the revered Shankar family name, however, was not a bid for musical autonomy or proving her self-worth as an artist outside her father's shadow. It came about long before she became a household name. 

Jones was raised primarily by her mother Sue Jones, a concert producer in New York with whom Shankar was romantically involved. Notorious for his bustling love life, the sitar icon stuck around for a few years during Jones' childhood but became distant from the family when he went on to marry a different woman (with whom he had Anoushka Shankar, another scion of the Shankar music lineage and Jones' half-sister). 

Though she was born Geetali Norah Shankar, the "Come Away with Me" hitmaker dropped her Indian titles during her period of estrangement from her father and took on her mother's last name. Years passed before she met Shankar again. Recalling the moment for Vogue India, Norah said: "All families have their complicated corners. It was challenging when we ... were reunited when I was 18. It took us all some time to feel comfortable with each other." 

Being the daughter of a former President of the United States puts you in an eternal spotlight that follows you around, even long after the White House term has ended. So when Malia Obama dropped her famous last name — a detail made public at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival — the world sat up to take notice. Credits for her short film "The Heart" recognized her simply as Malia Ann, with the young filmmaker forging herself a new identity to detach from the immediately distinct Obama surname. 

Earnest as Malia's attempt was to avoid leveraging her family name in a bid to boost her film, the effectiveness of it was debatable — something her parents, Michelle and Barack Obama, apparently reiterated to her. "We were like, 'They're still going to know it's you, Malia,'" Michelle revealed on Kate Hudson's "Sibling Revelry" podcast. "But we respected the fact that she's trying to make her way." 

Though the privilege of the Obama name has carried the family's unyielding celebrity well past 2017, whether they like it or not, Malia's transformation into an independent, press-shy creative in the face of relentless media coverage has been noteworthy. As Barack said on "The Pivot Podcast" about both his daughters: "The challenge for us is letting us give them any help at all. They're very sensitive about this stuff." 

In 2022, Vivian Wilson — born Xavier Alexander Musk — turned 18 and used her legal autonomy to part ways with the identity of her father, billionaire tech tycoon Elon Musk, by having her name changed. Wilson stated "Gender Identity and the fact that I no longer live with or wish to be related to my biological father in any way, shape or form" as reasons behind this measure, TMZ first reported, quoting official documents. 

One half of a twin pair and Musk's oldest child, Wilson shared a fractured relationship with her famous father for years — especially in her journey of figuring out her gender and transition as a trans woman. Speaking to NBC News, Wilson claimed that Musk was an absentee father during her childhood and that she "was relentlessly harassed for [her] femininity and queerness."

In recent years, several of Wilson and Musk's spats have played out in public, with the Tesla founder making contentious remarks about his daughter. He has even gone to the extent of deadnaming Wilson in interviews and referring to her as his son. Through their estrangement, Wilson has been able to carve out her own path as a model away from her dad's celebrity. Her mother, author and Musk's ex-wife Justine Wilson, has been far more supportive, according to Wilson, who goes by her maternal title in her name. 

The story of Micheál Richardson changing his last name from Neeson is both tragic and sentimental. He was a young teen when his mother Natasha Richardson — star of films like "The Parent Trap" and "Maid in Manhattan," and wife of Liam Neeson — died following a skiing accident in Quebec in 2009. 

When Richardson first followed his parents' footsteps into showbiz, he did so under his father's name, as seen in initial credits like "Anchorman 2." In 2018, he switched over to his maternal title in honor of his late mom. As his grandmother and acting icon Vanessa Redgrave explained, Richardson's decision had little to do with escaping the shadow of his award-winning father: "He wanted to hold his mother close to him — because she was a remarkable actress" (via Daily Mail).

Ironically, Natasha had spent years trying to shed the weight of the very identity her son came to adopt to preserve her memory. Born into the giant legacy of Britain's revered Redgrave acting dynasty, Natasha rebelled to find her own independent footing in Hollywood away from her famous family name. Richardson also paid a tribute of sorts to her in "Made in Italy," a film he co-starred in with his dad that explored themes of grief after death. "The parallels were so apparent that it felt like my mom, in a spiritual sense, had a hand in it," he told Vanity Fair. 

There was once a time when Suri Cruise (learn more about her), now Noelle, was one of the most popular celebrity kids around Tinseltown. Her surname — an inheritance handed down to her by her A-list father Tom Cruise – ensured that she remained a steady fixture across headlines, magazine covers, and other media coverage from the moment she was born in 2006. Noelle's mother Katie Holmes was popular, too, but her celebrity was nowhere near that of her ex-husband, who was reigning over the industry at the time. 

All that began to change when Cruise and Holmes divorced in 2012, leaving Noelle's primary custody with her mother as part of the settlement. In the years after, Noelle was frequently spotted in the company of the "Dawson's Creek" star, but her parents' split allegedly strained her relationship with her father, with whom she wasn't photographed throughout her youth. 

There were signs that Cruise was estranged from his daughter, but, given their penchant for privacy, neither party ever confirmed the speculation. One of the most telling affirmations of that narrative came about in 2024, when the teenager graduated from LaGuardia High School under the name Suri Noelle, switching out her dad's surname for Holmes' middle name. The Los Angeles Times reported that Cruise seemed to be missing from his youngest child's milestone moment, which she celebrated with her mother. 

A mention of the name Schumacher alone is enough to conjure adrenaline-fueled images of motorsport victories, racetrack records, and Formula 1 glory. All this, and more, pertains to the older of the two Schumachers, the one the world knows as the defining face of modern racing history: Michael Schumacher. For now, that is. 

Following the retirement of the F1 icon, big hopes are pinned on his son Mick, who bears the weight of the Schumacher title — a weight that, to him, is apparently "light as a feather." The 20-something racer told The Guardian: "I feel very privileged to be able to drive with the name. I have only seen the pros and I have only had a positive impact from it." Proud as he is of his last name, there was a time when Mick tried to see what it would be like to exist outside his father's shadow.

Mick kick-started his sporting career with karting. And as a young adolescent wanting to build on his own skill instead of on his father's fame, he initially competed as Mick Betsch, borrowing from his mother and ace equestrian Corinna Schumacher's maiden name. "We tried to keep it on the less noticeable side as long as possible," he said in an interview with Formula 1. "It gave me the opportunity to grow on my own and to understand how to be a normal kid and a normal racing kid." He switched back to Schumacher in good time.