I don't normally rename my villagers, but I do sometimes rename the chief. So far I've had Mrs T (after former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher), Indira (after the former Indian PM Indira Ghandi), Il Duce (Italian dictator Benito Mussolini) B Liar (British PM Tony Blair), and Da Boss (after no-one in particular but he looked a little like the capo of a Mafia family).

Does anyone else rename their chiefs?

I do. Any female chief I have gets remaned Hanabi.

Fireworks?

Hai, fireworks. My tribe is named Hanabi, so it's the Fireworks Tribe. Sounds better as Hanabi, though.

I rename everyone, my chief is Queen Bea. I used to have Lilli of the Lilliputian Tribe.

Specimen #1, Sample #2, Subject #3, etc.

I usually keep my Chief names what they are, but my last Female Chief I named Queen HarryFan.

That's funny, Arnie! I generally call mine Jefe. Except I did have one called Itchi. I liked that name so much I just left her. Chief Itchi!

My first chief ever was Dado, and I thought that was appropriate. I thought about rewriting to "Dad-O", but didn't. hee hee

I've also had Ika (I kind of felt sorry for her to be named "Squid", but kept it because she had hair kinda like tentacles), Cook and Yaro. I renamed the others and don't remember their given names, but now they are Tolavina and Chief Cabernet.

I am also one of those that rarely rename their villagers (except once playing VV 1 when I named them all after characters on Star Trek ). I do rename my villagers when multiple names pop up. I wish they had a way to keep that from happening!
Anyway, one of my chiefs is named 'Lulli' which I think is kind of a dumb name; so I'll probably rename him.