How to Change Page Slug?

Hello. Am setting up a new wp site and still doing some preliminary futzing around.

Created a new page called “A” (e.g., sitename.com/a). Deleted it. Now ready to begin work.

So, created the page again, calling it “A”, but this time WordPress insists on making the page’s permalink slug “a-2” (e.g., sitename.com/a-2). Trying to change the permalink from within the full Edit form doesn’t work — it just automatically resets it to “a-2”. Tried changing the slug from the quickedit form — I thought that would work since WordPress doesn’t visibly automatically change it, but after I save the changes and take a look, wp has made it “a-2” again.

Thoughts? Thanks…