Los Angeles, Jan. 20 (Reuters): A Los Angeles judge yesterday granted Oscar-winning actor Angelina Jolie’s request to change the last names of her children to reflect Brad Pitt’s status as their adoptive father.

The ruling means that Jolie’s children, four-year-old Maddox and Zahara, who just turned one, will now carry the last name Jolie-Pitt.

A spokeswoman for Pitt confirmed that Jolie, 30, was pregnant with a child fathered by the actor, the first official confirmation of a relationship that had been the subject of furious tabloid news coverage.

Pitt and Jolie met in 2004 while working together on the film Mr and Mrs Smith, in which they played married assassins ordered to kill each other.

Rumours of an affair heated up after Pitt and his ex-wife, former Friends star Jennifer Aniston, split up in January 2005.

Pitt also recently joined Jolie, a goodwill ambassador for a UN refugee agency, in efforts to promote various humanitarian causes, including fighting poverty in Africa.