Common names can stir strong emotions sometimes, which I kind of understand actually, but this is a splendidly civil and enlightening conversation so far. Thank you, ant-people!
I agree that names that are definitely in use for a particular species should stay even if they are confusing; the key question is whether the common name really is associated with only the one species. Names in field guides should also remain even if they are potentially confusing I think, because people will look up the name they see elsewhere and expect it to refer to the same thing.
There does seem to be some latitude accepted especially in broader taxa (e.g. ‘Drone flies and Allies’ is not a real name for the subfamily Eristalinae, but a sort of summary of its contents), and I have seen places where I think e.g. ‘European’ or ‘American’ have been added to a species common name for clarity - to my mind that sort of tweaking doesn’t count as ‘making names up’ - so long as it remains recognisable. I admit that the extent of this is not clear in the guidelines.
It sounds like a good idea to use the plural of some of these very general names as the name of a broader taxon (e.g. Genus) so that the common name can still be found and include the correct species. Then even if the singular is added to the precise species at least both will come up with a search and potentially alert a user to the fact that there are very similar species. I won’t make a specific suggestion with respect to these ants, because I don’t know them.