Syntax:
RENAME TABLE
    tbl_name TO new_tbl_name
    [, tbl_name2 TO new_tbl_name2] ...

RENAME TABLE renames one or more tables. You must have ALTER and DROP
privileges for the original table, and CREATE and INSERT privileges for
the new table.

For example, to rename a table named old_table to to new_table, use
this statement:

RENAME TABLE old_table TO new_table;

That statement is equivalent to the following ALTER TABLE statement:

ALTER TABLE old_table RENAME new_table;

RENAME TABLE, unlike ALTER TABLE, can rename multiple tables within a
single statement:

RENAME TABLE old_table1 TO new_table1,
             old_table2 TO new_table2,
             old_table3 TO new_table3;

Renaming operations are performed left to right. Thus, to swap two
table names, do this (assuming that a table with the intermediary name
tmp_table does not already exist):

RENAME TABLE old_table TO tmp_table,
             new_table TO old_table,
             tmp_table TO new_table;

To execute RENAME TABLE, there must be no active transactions or tables
locked with LOCK TABLES. With the transaction table locking conditions
satisfied, the rename operation is done atomically; no other session
can access any of the tables while the rename is in progress.

If any errors occur during a RENAME TABLE, the statement fails and no
changes are made.

You can use RENAME TABLE to move a table from one database to another:

RENAME TABLE current_db.tbl_name TO other_db.tbl_name;

Using this method to move all tables from one database to a different
one in effect renames the database (an operation for which MySQL has no
single statement), except that the original database continues to
exist, albeit with no tables.

Like RENAME TABLE, ALTER TABLE ... RENAME can also be used to move a
table to a different database. Regardless of the statement used, if the
rename operation would move the table to a database located on a
different file system, the success of the outcome is platform specific
and depends on the underlying operating system calls used to move table
files.

If a table has triggers, attempts to rename the table into a different
database fail with a Trigger in wrong schema (ER_TRG_IN_WRONG_SCHEMA)
error.

To rename TEMPORARY tables, RENAME TABLE does not work. Use ALTER TABLE
instead.

RENAME TABLE works for views, except that views cannot be renamed into
a different database.

Any privileges granted specifically for a renamed table or view are not
migrated to the new name. They must be changed manually.

RENAME TABLE changes internally generated foreign key constraint names
and user-defined foreign key constraint names that contain the string
"tbl_name_ibfk_" to reflect the new table name. InnoDB interprets
foreign key constraint names that contain the string "tbl_name_ibfk_"
as internally generated names.

Foreign key constraint names that point to the renamed table are
automatically updated unless there is a conflict, in which case the
statement fails with an error. A conflict occurs if the renamed
constraint name already exists. In such cases, you must drop and
re-create the foreign keys for them to function properly.

URL: http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.5/en/rename-table.html

