Scholars have theorized that these daughters may be the same figures as the nine mothers of the god Heimdallr.
The names of Ægir and Rán's daughters occur commonly in Old Norse sources.
[11] In chapter 61 of the Nafnaþulur subsection of Skáldskaparmál, the author again recounts the names of the nine daughters with a slight variation (here Dröfn is replaced with Bára).
However, this connection has been questioned on the grounds that the names presented for the Nine Daughters of Ægir and Rán and the Nine Mothers of Heimdallr (as listed in Völuspá hin skamma) do not match.
[13] Scholar John Lindow comments that the identification of Heimdallr's mothers as Ægir and Rán's daughters do, however, match on the grounds that Ægir and Rán's daughters, like Heimdallr's mothers, are sisters, and that two separate traditions about Heimdallr's mothers may explain the differences between the two.