Jolie To Change Son's Last Name

(AP)  Angelina Jolie has filed legal papers to change the name of her newly adopted son to Pax Thien Jolie-Pitt.

A legal petition filed Monday in Los Angeles County Superior Court states Jolie wants to change the 3-year-old boy's name so that it will include "the last name of her partner," Brad Pitt, and be the same as that of the couple's other children.

The petition was first reported by the syndicated television program "The Insider."

Jolie traveled to Vietnam last month to adopt Pax from a Ho Chi Minh City orphanage. The actress filed adoption papers as a single parent since she and Pitt are not married.

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Photos: Angelina Jolie: Viet Mom

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The pair's other three children are 5-year-old Maddox, who was adopted from Cambodia; 2-year-old Zahara, who was adopted from Ethiopia; and daughter, Shiloh, who was born to the couple last May.

[wildcardmg]

I have two adopted children - one born in the US and one adopted internationally. Adoption in the US has several downsides. Attempting to adopt a newborn is like a personality contest in many ways. You fill out paperwork that describes your lifestyle and are "chosen" by birth parents making an adoption plan. Even after being "chosen", the birth parents can change their minds up to and even after the birth. In some cases, the birth parents have up to 6 months to change their minds and take the child back from the adoptive family. This is an emotional risk that many people are unable and/or unwilling to take.

Adopting an older child from foster care can be as much of a challenge. Our social system focuses so much on the rights of the families that children are kept in the system and passed from foster home to foster home for many years until they are unable to bond with the families who truly want to parent them. Many have suffered abuse and neglect. The number of young, healthy children available for adoption through foster care is very low.

International adoption allows families to adopt young children without the fear of them being "taken back" and on a relatively set schedule, as opposed to waiting indefinitely until being "chosen".

In the Jolie-Pitts' case, they are truly citizens of the world, working for the health and welfare of people from all nations. Why is it so odd that they should build their family from the whole world instead of just this nation?

[fleure-2009]

I am contemplating adopting a little girl...have you any suggestion as to where here in the States I could find my little one?

It is made so complicated here and less than appealing, specially when considering the children abroad with less than nothing.

Officials should change the rules and allow for locals to adopt locals without too much "protocol" and pubilicity.

Just allow good citizens to do good citizenship deeds without "harassment" from public to politics.

[jennmarie620]

why is this news?

[plainspoken1]

I think it is wonderful Angelina and Brad have so much love for children and their hearts are big enough to take in children from other countries. I would love to see them adopt children who need the same kind of love and care they are giving their children now to children here in the USA. We have so many needy children right here that need to be loved and cared for too. I know the laws are different here and it is hard to adopt, I would like to know they at least tried. That goes for the rest of the stars who are adopting out of the country why not look right here at home first?