Everything at NovaAI is named after space. The models, the characters, the company itself. That’s not a coincidence, but it’s also not the result of some grand naming strategy drafted on day one. The system that exists now emerged over time, project by project, each name chosen for a reason that only made sense as part of a bigger picture in hindsight. Here’s how it came together.
Before NovaAI had a naming system, it didn’t even have NovaAI. The earliest projects were disconnected from each other and named independently. ADA, a home assistant, was a reference to Ada Lovelace. Kyoko, a conversational AI character, got her name from an anime because it sounded right. Neither had a theme behind it, and neither needed one. They were standalone projects with no shared identity, built before there was anything to share an identity with.
When NovaAI became the umbrella, the space theme followed naturally. Nova is a stellar explosion, so everything built under it inherited that language. Model names reflect what they are: a flagship carries the weight of Supernova, something experimental gets the instability of Hypernova, and a large-scale model earns a name like Andromeda. Astra, the reasoning model, takes its name from the Latin word for star. None of this was mapped out in advance; each name was chosen as its project took shape, and a system revealed itself along the way.
The Studio side follows a different convention. Hoshi, the anime image model, is named in Japanese for the same reason the model exists: anime. The characters it generates all carry Hoshi (星, star) as a surname, and their given names are written in kanji chosen to reflect who they are. Each full name reads as something more than the sum of its parts: Aya Hoshi (彩星, colorful star), Yoru Hoshi (夜星, night star), and Mei Hoshi (明星, bright star). Aya was the first character tied to the model, and her name reflects that connection; she represents its creative output. Yoru was originally developed under the internal codename “darkstar,” and the name fit before it was ever formalized. Mei is the newest, and her name mirrors her personality. Like the models, their names are built into the same system that defines everything else at NovaAI.
Kyoko is the exception. She predates the space theme, the kanji conventions, and NovaAI itself. Her name came from an anime and stuck because it worked. No deeper meaning, no system behind it. She’s the oldest project still active, and her name is a reminder that none of this was built with a grand plan in mind.
The naming system at NovaAI is still forming. New models will likely follow the same space-themed conventions, with names chosen to reflect what they do rather than assigned from a list. New characters will carry meaning in their kanji. And somewhere along the way, the pattern will probably extend in directions that don’t exist yet. The best systems aren’t designed. They’re discovered.
-Boof2015