Is there a way I can rename an object that is animated in unity without breaking the link to the animation?? 
Hey sorry this is so late, but I did find this thread in the Unity forums; take a look at the 6th post on this thread:
https://forum.unity3d.com/threads/renaming-moving-child-game-objects-breaks-animationclips.101866/
It doesn’t fix the issue 100% because it’s still tedious to rename the properties inside every animation clip, but it still helps at least if you really want to rename something after animating it.