Comment by bonoboTP

They initially wanted to call it just "Gemini 2.5 Flash Image (preview)" but the Internet stuck with the anonymous codename Nano-banana from LMArena because it's interesting and quirky. Google didn't officially adopt it until several days after the public release, exactly because of what you say. Eventually, not using it in their comms got more confusing because regular people were asking how they can find this Nano banana thing everyone is hyped about.