What is in a Name?

Recently, I was giving certain images to a few friends of mine. In order to ensure that the images did not get mixed up and to ensure my credit, I wanted to rename the images. However, these were 100 odd images and manually renaming all of them got tedious. Also, I wish to retain the original file names. Can you tell me if there is a method that lets me do this?
Prakash Joglekar, Pune

This is the Set Rename Option window which can be opened by going to Batch Rename settings in IrfanView.

If you simply wish to rename your images, open the folder, select them, right click and choose Rename from the dropdown menu. However, if you wish to keep the original filenames intact, you can use a software like Irfanview. In Irfanview, go to File > Batch Conversion/ Rename. Once the Batch Conversion window opens, navigate to your desired folder and click on Add All. Under the Output Directory option, select a location to save the images. Then, under the Work As section, choose Batch Rename. Click on Set Rename Options under Batch Rename settings and choose a renaming format such as $N_#### where “$N” will retain the old file name while “_” acts as a separator and “####” is for a four-digit number. So, the resulting filename would be “Card_0001”.