Funny thing even when the Episode IV title was old news and it had A New Hope at the beginning the film was still just called Star Wars. I don’t remember a single person calling it a new hope. I even have VHS copies and Laserdiscs where it just says Star Wars. The standee displays and advertising was for Star Wars.
Yeah, Even as late as the 1997 SE campaign it was still being referred to and marketed as just Star Wars. I think the 1995 “Faces” VHS has A New Hope on the spine in tiny lettering underneath Star Wars in bold, but it wasn’t until the 2000 VHS re-release of the SEs (Which were no longer being branded as Special Editions) that the original film began to be marketed as Episode IV: A New Hope. It was also during the prequel era that fans and joe schmoes started referring to the film in casual conversation as A New Hope.
It was also around 2000 that the original versions disappeared entirely from the market, to the point that even video rental chains were being forced to carry the SE only when many stores had previously carried both up until then. This was the “Order 66” for the original versions being available anywhere from that point on, as it was at this point in time when a concentrated effort had been made by Lucasfilm to “wipe out” all remnants of the original versions from public accessibility.