Meet The Google Product Manager Who Named ‘Nano Banana’: Naina Raisinghani’s Story Goes Viral

Ever wondered why Google named its Gemini image editing tool as 'Nano Banana'? Apparently, it was a 2.30am decision made by Naina Raisinghani, a Product Manager at Google DeepMind. Her story of how Nano Banana got its name has gone viral on the Internet, not because its crazy, but because of her quick thinking and personal life reference.

Raisinghani shared how the unusual moniker originated during the development of what is technically known as Gemini 2.5 Flash Image. The story dates back to early August last year, when the team needed a codename to submit the unreleased model anonymously to LMArena, a crowd-sourced platform for evaluating AI models. Technical names like 'Gemini 2.5 Flash Image' were deemed too straightforward, and discussions dragged on until the early hours.

"We pushed the codename conversation until the last minute," Raisinghani explained in the blog. "So at 2:30 a.m., one of the PMs messaged me saying we needed to submit it, and I said, ‘OK, how about something funny like ‘Nano Banana’?’ And they're like, ‘Yeah, sure. That's completely nonsensical." The suggestion was approved instantly, perhaps helped by the ungodly hour.

Personal nickname inspiration behind Nano Banana

The name was not entirely random. Raisinghani revealed it was a playful combination of her own nicknames from friends. "Some of my friends call me Naina Banana, and others call me Nano because I’m short and I like computers. So I just smushed my two nicknames together,” she said. “And it fit because it was a Flash model."

What began as an internal joke for testing soon took on a life of its own when the model launched publicly in late August as part of the Gemini app and other Google services.

Internal codename turned into a cultural phenomenon

Users quickly praised the model's capabilities, such as generating and editing images with remarkable accuracy, maintaining likenesses, handling multiple images, and rendering text correctly. But the absurdly cheerful name added an extra layer of appeal.

"People responded really well. They were so impressed with it, and then they found the name funny, and that kind of grew discourse," Raisinghani noted.

The model sparked global trends, including photorealistic 3D figurine-style images that went viral from Thailand, and culturally relevant creations like saree-themed edits in India. Social media buzz propelled it to become one of the top-rated image editing models worldwide.

Google leaned into the whimsy, incorporating banana emojis in the Gemini app, yellow run buttons in AI Studio, and even banana-themed team swag. "We leaned into the silliness of it all. We've embraced the banana emoji as one of us," Raisinghani said, adding that the team remains divided on the puns.

Why Nano Banana was a success globally

Raisinghani attributed part of the model's popularity to its immediate wide availability. "One reason we were successful is the model was available everywhere from day one. It didn’t matter what country you were in, or whether you were a developer or a consumer, you had it on the same day," she said.