Worried about telling my boyfriend about changing my name

Hi, this is my first ever post on this forum. I am sorry if I make any mistakes, please correct me if I do make any.

Some basic background first. I have been with my boyfriend for 5 months, but we were close friends since September. This is my first ever romantic relationship and also my first relationship where I am actually very close to someone. This means I do not know much about proper conduct for this sort of thing. I am (fairly) newly trans and have recently experienced a lot more dysphoria and discontent with myself than I have ever before for a variety of reasons.

Now for the setup. A month into our relationship I expressed maybe wanting to use she/her pronouns, so he suggested he/she pronouns. I had thoughts about maybe being trans long before then, but how good it felt hearing him call me she/her and how it felt when he used he/him confirmed to me that I was.

I came out to him as trans 3 months (??? unsure on exact timings) into our relationship, it went poorly at first but he improved greatly with time. I decided to keep my 'original' name, which was my (very masculine) middle name, not my first name as I have gone by my middle name for a few years by now.

Since then, I have had doubts about wanting to be called my middle name. I am ok with it, but I was curious about other options. I experimented with various names before settling on Evelyn, which was at first only was a "oh this could be a good name for me". Recently, I started both mentally calling myself Evelyn and using it to refer to myself while journalling. I really really like Evelyn being used to refer to me, to the point where it feels weird to call myself my middle name now. Also using Evelyn would keep my initials intact, as my first name also starts with an E, which is a really nice bonus.

Now it comes to the problem. My boyfriend is very accepting of me now and has supported me a lot, but he's also said some stuff that makes me worried about telling him about changing my name. He said in passing a few weeks ago, "You'll always be MIDDLE NAME to me.", in reference to people calling me by my first name. He's also made comments on how much he likes my middle name.

I could still just go by my middle name, but I really like being Evelyn. I just worry that he won't like me being Evelyn and/or he'll miss my middle name. I don't know what to do and that's why I am asking here.

Thank you for reading me ramble about my worries and for your help.

 

Thank you for your response!
I didn't make this clear in my post and I am sorry, but I have not told him about my name change yet. I rushed the last half of typing this because I got a notification from staff that I needed to make a Welcome post, so I didn't get the information properly across.

But, I think sitting down and talking to him about it will be a good thing either way, so thank you for that advice. Only problem is that I am currently away from home because of work, and I still have some time to go until I am back home. Do I wait until until I am back to talk in person or do I talk to him through messages over discord? Discord is the only way I can contact him and he cannot use the call function.

Also, I like the nickname idea, I will definitely try that

Thank you again for responding

 

Thank you so much for the advice. Looking back, yeah I was just overthinking it. I was nit picking stuff he said a while ago and what he was saying was just to support me and there was no way he was meaning "never change your name". I think I just needed someone to say that it'll be fine lol

I will wait until I am back home to tell him, I think it'll just be easier and it gives me time to think about how I am going to do it. Thank you so much again