How do I prevent Blender adding an index-suffix to the objects' names? My problem is that whenever I delete all objects (selecting all objects and pressing 'Delete' then selecting 'Delete' from the drop-down menu) and import them back, the objects' names get an "index suffix", e.g. ".001".

For example, I import an .obj file, and there is an object in that file with the name "TableA". I delete it, import the same file, and now it has the name "TableA.001". I'm using a script afterwards which references the tables with their "original" name, so it's a little bit annoying I have to remove those indexes. Is there a way to circumvent this behavior?

Also, some sort of explanation would be nice - why does the program feel the urge to add that index though there is no existing object with the original name (because it has been deleted)?
When you delete an object, not all information about it will be deleted. Its mesh data will remain in the file. So if you want to delete the mesh data, open Outliner in Orphan data mode and click on Purge All - it will delete all mesh data that are not used in the scene, and free names.



Normally, object and mesh data can use different names, but the obj-import script makes these names the same. That's the reason why a new object gets the  old name, but obj-import gets a new one.