Suri Noelle Legally Drops Tom Cruise’s Last Name, Voter Records Confirm

Voter Registration Records Confirm the Legal Surname Change

The legal shift from Suri Cruise to Suri Noelle surfaced through public documents in Pennsylvania, where the college student lives while attending Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh. According to Pennsylvania voter records reviewed by USA TODAY, she registered in Allegheny County using her new legal moniker. State officials confirmed that residents must use their legal names to vote. Page Six, the gossip column for the New York Post, first reported the news.

While Allegheny County courts confirmed to Page Six that residents must register to vote using their legal name and that Suri did not file a name change request in Allegheny County, suggesting that she may have done it in New York before she left for college, according to Page Six, which was first to report the news. In New York, name change applications are either automatically sealed or can be sealed at the applicant’s request, according to Page Six.

USA TODAY reached out to representatives for Holmes, 47, and Cruise, 64, for comment. The Daily Mail has also reached out to representatives for Cruise and Holmes for comment.

From LaGuardia High School Playbills to Pittsburgh Stages

The name first appeared in theater programs and graduation pamphlets in New York. During her senior year at LaGuardia High School in New York, the teen graduated from LaGuardia High School in New York, making headlines with her decision to drop her famous father’s surname and change to ‘Suri Noelle’. Reports of Noelle dropping her father’s last name in public, including in her high school graduation, date back to 2024, though it is unclear when she legally changed her name.

The surname change first came to public attention in May 2024 when the daughter of the famous couple was credited as Suri Noelle in a production of Head Over Heels, in which she played Princess Philoclea, Hello! Magazine reported. A month later, she was again listed as Suri Noelle in her high school graduation programme. Her new name was shown at the ceremony as Suri Noelle when she graduated from the prestigious LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts in New York City this month.

Her graduation wasn’t the first time that she went by the new name, as she was listed as Suri Noelle when she played Morticia Addams in her school’s production of The Addams Family: A New Musical in December and the production of The Go-Go’s jukebox musical, Head Over Heels.

Now going by Suri Noelle, the 18-year-old reportedly made this choice as a tribute to her mother, adopting the actress’s middle name, Noelle, as her new surname. The change signifies the teenager’s desire to honor her mother and step out of her famous father’s shadow, a source claimed. She is showing praise for her mother by using her middle name, a source told Page Six.

A Decade of Estrangement and Public Scrutiny

The apparent name change comes amid a longstanding estrangement between Noelle and her father. Suri Cruise has officially severed ties with her estranged dad. The 20-year-old daughter of Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes legally dropped Cruise and changed her last name to Noelle, Page Six can exclusively reveal. Public records show Suri registered to vote in Pennsylvania — where she currently lives — in October 2024 during her freshman year at Carnegie Mellon University.

Cruise and Holmes welcomed their daughter into the world in April 2006, married in November 2006 and divorced in 2012. Noelle was born on April 18, 2006, exactly a year after her parents’ whirlwind romance that whipped up a frenzy around their small family and ended with a sudden split after nearly six years, followed by a reported estrangement from her father.

Suri is the youngest and only biological child of the 64-year-old Top Gun actor’s three children. He adopted his first two children, Isabella and Connor, during his 11-year marriage with Nicole Kidman.