Michelle Obama Speaks Out About Eldest Daughter, Malia, Dropping Family Name

When the aspiring filmmaker debuted her short film The Heart at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival, her famous moniker was nowhere to be found. Instead, she was credited as “Malia Ann.”

This week, her mother appeared on Kate and Oliver Hudson’s Sibling Revelry podcast, explaining that it was her daughter’s decision for her growing career to make the change.

“I mean, it is very important for my kids to feel like they’ve earned what they are getting in the world, and they don’t want people to assume that they don’t work hard, that they’re just naturally, just handed things,” Michelle stated,. “They’re very sensitive to that — they want to be their own people.”

Although Malia chose to replace her last name name with her middle name, “Ann” still holds a lot of family significance, since it’s the name of Barack’s late mother, Ann Dunham, who died in 1995.

“We were like, they’re still going to know it’s you, Malia,” Michelle said. “But we respected the fact that she’s trying to make her way.”

In October 2024, President Barack Obama, 63, appeared on The Pivot Podcast and shared his thoughts about the situation as well.

“I was all like, ‘You do know they’ll know who you are,'” he said at the time.

“And she’s all like, ‘You know what? I want them to watch it that first time and not in any way have that association,'” he added. “So I think our daughters go out of their way to not try to leverage that.”