A method used by an electronic design automation system for stabilizing the names of components and nets of an integrated circuit from one design version to another. A previous integrated circuit design version and a current integrated circuit design version are partitioned into multiple cones of logic design. Each cone of logic design is defined by a path from a logic designer-defined apex net to a logic designer-defined base net affecting the apex net. Selected cones of logic design are compared. If the selected cones have identical logical structure, the component and net names of the previous integrated circuit design version are transferred to the current integrated circuit design version. If the selected cones of logic design do not have identical structure, then the component and net names for subsections of the selected cones of logic design that do have identical logical structure are transferred to the current integrated circuit design version, and new component and net names are assigned to those subsections of the selected cones of logic design from the current integrated circuit design version which did not exist in the previous integrated circuit design version.