I'm designing an Assembly gizmo and I'm using various custom Parts and Assemblies at fastners and connectors.  So I might have dozen or more of these Parts and Assemblies which for various reasons such as color coding or naming I've made into new named Parts or Assemblies.  However, I'm also wanting to tweak various aspects which would apply to most or all of the many copies I've made from Original.   These will be "pure" functional copies of the Original, differing only in Name and Color.  

Any slick way to have these Units used in a larger Assembly under their new names and colors, yet still have them all or in selected group update to new form by somehow linking them to an Original?  Or can they be put in a group of functionally identical Parts/Assembly for a group edit/update?

Is there some finer point of "Advanced Naming" that might allow this?   Maybe they all have the Original "real legal name" but can be given "nick name" to ID them better on Feature Tree?  What about giving copies of a part a different Appearance in Assembly without giving them a new Name?