I personally refer to the 21 as ‘The Angel’, and the Q1/2/3 as ‘a Quaylink’, as do a few of my friends/relatives/colleagues who are not interested in buses whatsoever, however every other route I’d call by number.

Being a regular Angel 21 commuter pre-COVID, I’d often overhear tourists onboard travelling from central Newcastle out to see Angel of the North, no doubt made easier by the obvious route branding which does what it says on the tin - no argument.
To suggest this route be renamed seems ridiculous to me personally. And calling it something like Northern would only be appreciated a very small percentage (probably a few elderly or some enthusiasts), and to the other 99% it would be meaningless, with many probably preferring the Angel name reinstated.

Having previously worked in a role where we’d often help with local/tourist information, I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve been able to easily refer people wanting to visit Angel of the North to the Angel 21 bus service, and even more so to the ‘Quaylink’ network for hopping on and off at tourist attractions, landmarks and points of interest around central Newcastle/Gateshead and the Quaysides.

The ‘Quaylink’ name has been known here for years, pre GNE slapping names on routes willy nilly, and I’d argue the name is a brand in itself.
The ‘Q’ for Quaylink symbol was always shown on city centre maps along with the ‘M’ is for Metro symbol, & the National Rail station symbol, almost like Quaylink was its own form of transport. It was certainly a noticeable stand out bus service from the rest when it began.
I reckon a large percentage of people here would know what ‘Quaylink’ is and for that reason I don’t think it should be renamed.
Yes you could say GNE came along and saved it and made it profitable after the original organisations pulled funding from it, but I don’t think they should now rename it. It’s almost been a recent City icon for years, and will only remain a familiar thing to residents & visitors if named Quaylink and kept (mostly) yellow.

One last thing, to see some of you now complaining that any local routes being repainted are just going to be a [insert colour] version of the Cobalt or new Crusader, well isn’t that the whole point of this huge company image transformation? To actually have a design house style again, where there’s a chance these randomly coloured, randomly named buses will actually look like they belong to one identifiable, and hopefully professional looking company.