We generally use a semester/year code in our course names to avoid this problem, e.g., CM101FA2005 for the short name and CM101 Fall 2005 for the long name.
As Darren says, if you make a backup of the course without students, then restore it to a new course, it works great. Just make sure to use a slightly different name for the restore and you're golden.
Backup and restore
Retaining courses at end of term
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