The original question was 'But why have these names [Ionian, Dorian, etc] persisted? Has anyone ever come up with a serious attempt at renamimg them?'

I play many kinds of music, including early music. Very rarely do I come across a tune which is actually modal, even from the 1500's or 1600's. A tune might seem to be modal, but in the end it reverts to the tonic.

By a modal song I mean one which starts on a note which is not the tonic of the scale. Its highest note would be the starting note (up an octave) and its last, resolving note would be the same as the starting note. In a more restrained tune, the highest note would probably just be the fifth of the modal scale. One such tune is 'Nun Komm der Heiden Heiland,' a little-heard Christmas song which I believe was once Gregorian chant.

I was in an early-music workshop once where we did a haunting song in the Phrygian mode. It was from the 1200's.

So nobody has bothered to rename the modes because the modes are of no real use in learning modern music. Perhaps in the middle ages, when unlearned men had to master scads of Gregorian chants in short order, the modes were helpful. Today they are fun to explore, but not worth renaming.