What is the effect of the choice to "set up as new iPad"? My daughter wants to rename her iPad mini, and I told her I thought the only way to do this was to connect it to iTunes on a computer, but when we connected it to my laptop, we got 



This is disturbing, since obviously I neither want to set up the iPad as new again, nor do I want to restore over it with a backup from another device.  Both would wipe it, and would make absolutely no sense.

There is a page which claims this does not actually set up the iPad to be as new, but instead simply adds allows it to start syncing with iTunes.  I'm hesitant to believe this—normally Apple is not so careless in their choice of words, but since StackExchange site usually give more reliable information than other forums, I'm hoping someone can confirm or deny this claim FROM PERSONAL EXPERIENCE.  Thanks.
CONFIRMED BY MYSELF on my new iPad mini 4 and iTunes 12.

If you select "Set up as new iPad" and hit Enter you'll get a new window with "Sync with iTunes" message and a blue button with white letters Get Started.
After hitting this button you'll get a iTunes window for your attached device with all the relevant information, Backups and other Options.

In other words, if you select "Set up as new iPad" * NOTHING IS CHANGED IN THE ATTACHED DEVICE * it is only attached to iTunes for subsequent actions.