diff --git a/pycytominer/cyto_utils/cells.py b/pycytominer/cyto_utils/cells.py
index debb209d..7fd8a7e4 100644
--- a/pycytominer/cyto_utils/cells.py
+++ b/pycytominer/cyto_utils/cells.py
@@ -713,8 +713,13 @@ def merge_single_cells(
 
         sc_df = (
             self.image_df.merge(sc_df, on=self.merge_cols, how="right")
-            .rename(self.linking_col_rename, axis="columns")
-            .rename(self.full_merge_suffix_rename, axis="columns")
+            # pandas rename performance may be improved using copy=False, inplace=False
+            # reference: https://ryanlstevens.github.io/2022-05-06-pandasColumnRenaming/
+            .rename(
+                self.linking_col_rename, axis="columns", copy=False, inplace=False
+            ).rename(
+                self.full_merge_suffix_rename, axis="columns", copy=False, inplace=False
+            )
         )
         if single_cell_normalize:
             # Infering features is tricky with non-canonical data