Back when I lived in Darkest Iowa, I worked for a time doing paste-up for a small weekly lifestyle paper in Des Moines called The Skywalker. The paper took its name from the city's skywalk system which linked the downtown district into an interconnected web.
Every once in a while, the paper's owner would make noises about changing the paper's name. I don't think it was out of fear of George Lucas's lawyers; (although I did have some trepidation the time my editor had me draw a cartoon of Luke Skywalker and Princess Leia for the paper's cover; nothing came of it).
The main reason, I think, was that when her sales staff would approach businesses about advertising in the Skywalker or even being a distribution point; (it was a free advertiser), often the business would say, "My store/restaurant/bicycle shop/whatever isn't located on the Skywalk, so why should I advertise with you?" And there were some street level businesses that disliked the Skywalk system because it diverted foot traffic away from their storefronts.
Once the paper's owner formed a focus group, composed of some of her friends in the Des Moines business community to try to find a better name for the paper. One of her friends came right out and said, "If you really want to change the name, let me know ahead of time so I can buy the trademark. It's a good name." That assuaged her for a little while.
But I think the final nail was once when a neighbor of the owner's, while chatting with her in the elevator of the condominium where she lived, greeted her by saying, "How's that paper of yours doing, 'The Street-walker'?"
A couple years after leaving the Skywalker and moving back to Ames, Iowa, I ran into one of my co-workers from the paper, who told me they had finally changed the name after all. The paper was now called "The City Times."
Which struck me as a terrible name. "Skywalker" at least was distinctive, and it evoked a feature of the city fairly unique to Des Moines. It's an interesting feature of a midwestern city not terribly known for its interesting features. "City Times", however, is bland and generic. Nothing about it specifically says "Des Moines" I couldn't help but think that they had ditched a recognizable brand for something boring.
Kind of like what Elon X has done.