Meet Angelina’s Boy: Pax Thien Jolie

Angelina Jolie has added another international child to her fast-growing family with Brad Pitt — and the new addition’s name is Pax Thien Jolie.

The Hollywood star completed adoption procedures for Pax, a 3-year-old Vietnamese boy, in Ho Chi Minh City on Thursday morning after picking him up from the orphanage she and Pitt visited during a trip last November. Jolie adopted the boy as a single parent because Vietnam’s adoption regulations don’t allow unmarried couples to co-adopt. Her new son joins 5-year-old brother Maddox, adopted from Cambodia, sister Zahara, age 2, from Ethiopia; and baby Shiloh, the couple’s biological daughter who was born in Namibia last May.

The boy’s new name — Pax Thien — add up to “peaceful sky” in two languages. Pax means “peace” in Latin and the Vietnamese middle name means “sky.” The name change was confirmed by the director of Tam Binh Orphanage in Ho Chi Minh City, where the boy has lived since being abandoned as an infant.

Despite his serene name, little Pax’s formal introduction to his new movie-star mother was slightly stormy: the boy started crying when Jolie knelt down to speak to him at Thursday morning’s welcoming ceremony, according to the orphanage director, Nguyen Van Trung. Jolie wasn’t fazed.

“She told me she understands — that it’s normal for all young children to be scared,” Trung recalled Thursday. Jolie took the boy aside in a separate room from the ceremony for the boy recovered his composure. “Later he was OK, very cheerful and happy,” Trung said. “He even played with his new brother Maddox.”

The boy’s main caretaker at the orphanage, Ms. Bui Thi Thanh Tuyen, said there was a reason that Pax — usually known as an exceptionally cheerful child — was caught off guard Thursday: wasn’t actually told by the staff that he was being adopted that day. “We did not say anything to him, afraid we might put pressure on him and more frightened,” Tuyen said. “We just told him that we are taking him out. You are going to play outside — play with a mother and father.”

Still, the orphanage staff prepared him as best they could: They packed a small box with two sets of clothes for him to take, and his favorite toys, especially a small plastic piano. They also taught him a few phrases of English “How are you?” and “What’s your name?”

Tuyen said she’ll miss the boy but adds that any day a child is adopted is a special day at the orphanage. “We are glad that he’s adopted. He’s very clever and I hope he has a good life,” she said. “We just hope he will return to visit us one day.”