18-year-old daughter changes name without telling parents, Mom and Step-Dad learn at her graduation: 'I never wanted to be his kid'

Names are a personal thing… A personal thing that you traditionally have no control over—yet that defines your life before it even begins… and forms the basis of how others shape their understanding of you. 

It's understandable why we need them. The whole thing just makes sense and would be a little confusing if we didn't have ways of categorizing and referring to one another—even in the simplest means of communication… Imagine a world without names where you had no way of identifying who a message was being sent to on your phone, relying on sheer intuition as to who would be receiving it.

You might not have any control over your name as a kid, but you can sure as heck go right ahead and rename yourself once you're out in the world and making it on your own. At that point, you'd just be relying on the older family members in your life rolling with it, just like this daughter did when she didn't tell her mother and stepfather about changing her name until they learned it at her graduation.