To give a thing a different name. Renaming changes nothing about the thing and changes everything about how it is found.
Re- (Latin, again) attached to name, from Old English nama, from a Proto-Indo-European root meaning name; to rename gives a thing a different word to be called by, without touching the thing the word points at.
To give a thing a different name. The root's calling-by changes only how a thing is found, and the thing found is exactly the same underneath the new word.