I would just like to rename the bosh deployment name.
Is there a easy and safe way to change the name?
Do I need to edit the bosh director database?
There is no supported way to change the name of a deployment which is considered the unique key for across all deployments managed by the same director.
The documents suggest that a future enhancement to CLI's edit action might address that:
Currently name provided via --deployment (-d) flag must match name specified in the manifest.
https://bosh.io/docs/cli-v2.html#deployment-mgmt
And echoed in a open feature https://github.com/cloudfoundry/bosh/issues/976 I suggest you add your vote and comments there.