If you make a name change when you feel it is appropriate, it may cost you some time and effort in the short run, but in the long run your development will have better flow.

What then, can you do to promote name changes? Here are three things: 1. Give things abstract names. Call the thing Alpha. When you know better what it will do, you can give it a better name. 2. Write tests; make commits. If you do this then you can make changes at less cost and risk. 3. Make efforts to get good at using tools for renaming. You may tend to avoid this because (a) you have to learn usage and (b) you fear making a mistake could be costly. But if you have done #2 then you have nothing to fear.

The names of things in code reflect what those things do. For code to evolve, the things in it must change; often, those changed things ought to change their names to reflect what they have come to do. If you do not promote name changes when needed, then natural development will become stifled.

Exposition