diff --git a/src/engine/target.js b/src/engine/target.js
index 9388937df..461eb81f1 100644
--- a/src/engine/target.js
+++ b/src/engine/target.js
@@ -515,7 +515,7 @@ class Target extends EventEmitter {
             // for all references for a given ID instead of doing the below..?
             this.blocks.getAllVariableAndListReferences()[idToBeMerged];
 
-        VariableUtil.mergeVariables(idToBeMerged, idToMergeWith, referencesToChange, optNewName);
+        VariableUtil.updateVariableIdentifiers(referencesToChange, idToMergeWith, optNewName);
     }
 
     /**
diff --git a/src/serialization/sb3.js b/src/serialization/sb3.js
index ed2b59973..ccc5dfb09 100644
--- a/src/serialization/sb3.js
+++ b/src/serialization/sb3.js
@@ -1160,7 +1160,7 @@ const replaceUnsafeCharsInVariableIds = function (targets) {
         // We're calling this on the stage target because we need a
         // target to call on but this shouldn't matter because we're passing
         // in all the varRefs we want to operate on
-        VariableUtil.mergeVariables(id, newId, allVarRefs);
+        VariableUtil.updateVariableIdentifiers(allVarRefs[id], newId);
     }
     return targets;
 };
diff --git a/src/util/variable-util.js b/src/util/variable-util.js
index 80b59a4a7..c1dab8f8e 100644
--- a/src/util/variable-util.js
+++ b/src/util/variable-util.js
@@ -25,18 +25,17 @@ class VariableUtil {
     }
 
     /**
-     * Merge variable references with another variable.
-     * @param {string} idToBeMerged ID of the variable whose references need to be updated
-     * @param {string} idToMergeWith ID of the variable that the old references should be replaced with
+     * Give all variable references provided a new id and possibly new name.
      * @param {Array<object>} referencesToUpdate Context of the change, the object containing variable
      * references to update.
+     * @param {string} newId ID of the variable that the old references should be replaced with
      * @param {?string} optNewName New variable name to merge with. The old
      * variable name in the references being updated should be replaced with this new name.
      * If this parameter is not provided or is '', no name change occurs.
      */
-    static mergeVariables (idToBeMerged, idToMergeWith, referencesToUpdate, optNewName) {
+    static updateVariableIdentifiers (referencesToUpdate, newId, optNewName) {
         referencesToUpdate.map(ref => {
-            ref.referencingField.id = idToMergeWith;
+            ref.referencingField.id = newId;
             if (optNewName) {
                 ref.referencingField.value = optNewName;
             }