thanks dave. that all makes sense, but 'name' does not actually seem to change anything. see example below. the other metadata that i alter is working (like URLs), just not the name.

Name of query file:
assignmentTotalCoAssigned.sql

Name of XML file:
assignmentTotalCoAssigned.query.xml

Contents of XML:
<query xmlns="http://labkey.org/data/xml/query" name="TotalCoAssigned">
    <metadata>
        <tables xmlns="http://labkey.org/data/xml">
<!-- Changing tableName below also does not seem to do anything !-->
            <table tableName="assignmentTotalCoAssigned" tableDbType="NOT_IN_DB">
                <columns>
                    <column columnName="objectId">
                        <isKeyField>true</isKeyField>
                    </column>
                    <column columnName="OverlappingAssignments">
                        <url>/query/executeQuery.view?schemaName=study&amp;
                            query.queryName=assignmentCoAssignedAnimals&amp;
                            query.pno~eq=${pno}&amp;
                            query.objectid~eq=${ObjectId}
                        </url>
                    </column>
                    <column columnName="ConcurrentAssignments">
                        <url>/query/executeQuery.view?schemaName=study&amp;
                            query.queryName=Assignments&amp;
                            query.Id~eq=${Id}&amp;
                            query.sort=-Date
                        </url>
                    </column>
                </columns>
                <titleColumn>OverlappingAssignments</titleColumn>
            </table>
        </tables>
    </metadata>
</query>