The Name Change Game

I'm still trying to decide on whether I should change my last name. I love my last name. I AM my last name. Who will I be if I change that?

The first night I met my fiance, I told him I'm never changing my last name and I'm not having kids. It may be a strange thing to say to some guy you just met, but somehow it came up in conversation. I started to relax the no-kids rule about 3 years into dating. Then came the thought that if I do have kids and I want them to have their dad's last name, shouldn't I then also have his last name? Oh what a slippery slope.

So yes, I changed my mind on that too but I was a lot more uneasy about that decision than the one where I agreed to gain a bunch of weight and push a living being into the world that I would have to feed and cloth for a minimum of 18 years. What to do?! I brought up my hesitation to the fiance after we got engaged and he was obviously hurt by it so I decided the name change wasn't the worst thing ever. Then we had one of those awful fights where we each listed (yelled) the things we did for each other that went unappreciated. My list included the name. He quickly assured me (in anger and not meaning it at all), that he didn't care if I took his name and now he didn't even want me to take it.

Yay! I'm free!

Except not really.

I know he didn't mean it and part of me would love to do this for him. I also know my name really doesn't define me as a person. It really feels like it does though. So that's the dilemma. Do I change the last name and risk not being me anymore or do I say "It's 2010 hon, it's a whole new world and that name-change idea is outdated"