Shiloh Jolie-Pitt was born on “May 27, 2006, in Swakopmund, Namibia, Africa,” per The Hollywood Reporter. As the New York Post confirmed at the time, African officials offered to grant Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt’s first biological child Namibian citizenship and a Namibian passport “if the parents should choose to do so.” They did, and Shiloh remains a Namibian citizen to this day, even though her status was briefly threatened in 2016 by the Namibian Citizenship Amendment Bill, which was eventually rejected. Shortly after Shiloh’s birth, Namibian governor Samuel Nuuyoma enthused, per People, that her arrival was “delightful news” and “an honor for our country, Namibia” because “the birth of a baby is something very special in our African tradition.”
As for her unique name, it has Hebrew origins. According to Easton’s Bible Dictionary, Shiloh is “generally understood as denoting the Messiah, ‘the peaceful one,'” but it can also refer to “a place of rest, a city of Ephraim, ‘on the north side of Bethel,’ from which it is distant 10 miles.”
Interestingly, when Jolie encouraged all of her kids to learn a different language, Shiloh didn’t choose Hebrew or an indigenous language from Namibia, but rather, as Jolie told BBC Radio 4’s “Woman’s Hour” in 2016, she picked Khmai, a Cambodian tongue.
