I don't think a name change would have made a difference in the last election, but 2-3 elections after a name change it may pay dividends. But it also isn't a change without risk involved.
It's easy to look at the recent harm caused from association with the federal party, but there is also a flip side where the federal orange wave in 2011 under Layton probably did a lot to help consolidate the opposition vote under the ANDP.
ANDP Seats won from 1993 to 2012: 0 2 2 4 2 4 (8-11% popular)
ALib Seats won from 1993 to 2012: 32 18 7 16 5 9 (26-39.7% popular until 2012 when it dropped to 9.9%)
Of course undercutting this theory is the fact that Alberta 2012 election came after 2011 and before 2015...though 2012 was a race between PC (popular 44%) and Wild Rose (34%), so I suspect a lot of voters went PC to avoid the Lake of Fire.
There were 22 different polls in the month preceding that election - all 22 had the Wild Rose leading (nearly always over 40%) and the PCs generally in the low 30s%.
Scroll down to Opinion Polls heading - it's actually shocking:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_A...neral_election