Renaming lists doesn't remove url from the database

We've got a scenario where we've had to rename a few lists. For example we've renamed List1 to List3 and then List2 to List1. When we try to rename List2 to List1, we get an error saying that the url already exists. After having a look at the database it seems that the renaming of List1 to List3 didn't clear the old url. So the only way to clean things up that we found was to go into the newly renamed List3, click on the url to change it without changing anything and then click on save which seems to clean up the database and remove the old url. Is there a better way to rename lists so that we don't get into this situation?