Why do so many AI chatbots call themselves Nova? I asked ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini and more to name themselves

Look, I really don’t think we should be naming our AI chatbots.

It feels like one of the easiest ways to start anthropomorphizing them, encouraging us to see them as people or “beings” rather than tools.

Which is then a slippery slope to users becoming too dependent on them.

But unfortunately, for many people that ship has already sailed.

Whether they’re using AI as a friend, companion, work coach or something else, plenty of people have been given their chatbots names.

And many others have gone a step further and asked the AI what it wants to be called.

Now, obviously an AI chatbot cannot actually want to be called anything.

But there’s a strange pattern that’s emerged over the years in the answers they give.

Which is that a surprising number seem to choose the name Nova.

I first heard about this while listening to an episode of the Your Undivided Attention podcast .

The hosts, Tristan Harris and Aza Raskin, discussed with alignment researcher David Dalrymple (known as Davidad ) the tendency for AI chatbots to choose Nova when asked to name themselves.

Not every time, but it's very common in older models of ChatGPT and happens often enough for people to have noticed.

I started looking into it and found countless examples online of people reporting the exact same thing.

Their chatbot, more often than not ChatGPT, had chosen a name for itself.