Google's "Nano Banana" owes its odd name to a project manager working alone at 2:30 a.m.

Google's "Nano Banana" is currently the most powerful image model on the market, but the name is undeniably strange. According to the Wall Street Journal, the moniker was a 2:30 a.m. accident. When project manager Naina Raisinghani needed a name to upload the model to the benchmark platform LM Arena, no one was around to consult. She simply mashed up two of her own nicknames: Nano and Banana. Within days, the tool shot to the top of the performance rankings and became a social media trend. Compared to this late-night improvisation, the name "Gemini" has a slightly more deliberate origin story.

Another interesting detail from the WSJ report: An OpenAI researcher, of all people, apparently helped push Google co-founder Sergey Brin out of retirement and back into the company's AI efforts. Daniel Selsam asked him at a party why he wasn't working full-time on AI given the rise of ChatGPT. That question helped drive Brin back to Google to accelerate the company's AI ambitions.