Google’s Nano Banana image model had been pivotal in getting Google back into the AI race, but not a lot of thought had gone into its name—which since has become mainstream.
As per a WSJ report, Nano Banana got its name from two nicknames that a Google DeepMind Product Manager’s friends had given her: Nano and Banana. In the early hours of an August morning last year, Naina Raisinghani, an AI product manager at Google, faced an unusual dilemma. She needed to upload Google DeepMind’s latest creation—a lightning-fast image generator that researchers hoped would give the search giant an edge against OpenAI’s ChatGPT—to LM Arena, a platform that ranks AI models. The catch? She needed a name to complete the upload, and it was 2:30 a.m. with nobody around to consult.
So Raisinghani improvised, mashing together two nicknames friends had given her: Nano Banana.
What happened next surprised even Google’s veteran AI team. Within days of its appearance on LM Arena, Nano Banana rocketed to the top spot in performance rankings, driven by its particular ability to edit images much better than other models at the time. The peculiar name sparked immediate chatter on X, where tech enthusiasts and AI researchers began dissecting the model’s impressive capabilities. Users praised its speed and quality, with many wondering which company had developed the mysterious “Nano Banana” that seemed to come out of nowhere.
Google ultimately said it was behind the model, but chose to release it under the name ‘Gemini Flash 2.5 Image’, following the naming convention it had followed for its AI products thus far. Google had attempted to assign the image generator a more conventional, corporate-approved name, but the response on X was swift and unequivocal: keep Nano Banana. Users had grown attached to the whimsical moniker, and several X users commented that Google preserve the name that had already become synonymous with high-quality AI image generation.
In a rare move that showed both humility and savvy understanding of internet culture, Google decided to honor the community’s wishes. The company that had leapfrogged OpenAI to the front of the AI pack chose to stick with the 2:30 a.m. improvisation of a sleep-deprived project manager.
Today, Nano Banana remains the official name in Google’s public-facing products. When users give Gemini a command to create an image, they see the message “loading Nano Banana”—a small reminder that even in the high-stakes world of artificial intelligence, sometimes the best branding comes not from focus groups and marketing departments, but from a moment of spontaneous creativity in the wee hours of the morning.
The story of Nano Banana has illustrates how the democratization of AI development—through platforms like LM Arena—can create unexpected viral moments. It also serves as a case study in how companies can benefit from embracing organic, community-driven branding rather than fighting it.
For Raisinghani, the mashup of her two nicknames has achieved a place in AI history as the one of the first truly viral AI products. What began as a placeholder born of necessity has become one of the most recognizable names in AI image generation, proving that in the rapidly evolving world of artificial intelligence, sometimes the most memorable innovations are the ones that never take themselves too seriously.