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Back in late July, the team was hard at work preparing the first version of the model for launch, squashing pesky bugs and running evaluations. They’d already locked in the technical name — Gemini 2.5 Flash Image — but one critical detail was still missing: a public codename for LMArena.
LMArena is a public platform designed to evaluate AI models through anonymous, crowd-sourced pairwise comparisons. Users submit a prompt and get responses from two unidentified models. They vote for the better response, and then the platform reveals which models were used.
While LMArena showcases released models, it’s also a powerful testing ground. Teams often submit models still in development to gather early performance signals and real-world, human feedback. Because these models are still being refined, using a codename is crucial.
“We pushed the codename conversation until the last minute,” Product Manager Naina Raisinghani says. “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 reason that idea came to Naina? It’s a variation of her own nickname. “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,” Naina says. “And it fit because it was a Flash model.”
The team introduced Nano Banana on LMArena in early August — and the model was ripe for virality. Users were stunned by its powerful editing capabilities, like its ability to maintain a person’s likeness and expertly edit multiple images together. Then, they saw the name. And social media went bananas.
“People responded really well. They were so impressed with it, and then they found the name funny, and that kind of grew discourse,” Naina says.
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