While most researchers assume they were separate, it has also been proposed they were the same deity, and by extension that Ninmug could also be viewed as the wife of the sea god Lugalabba.
[2] Most likely both functions were interlinked, and Antoine Cavigneaux and Manfred Krebernik point out that the same terms could be used to refer to birth of children and fashioning of cult statues and statuettes.
[6] The name Ninmug could be written as dNIN.MUG or possibly dNIN.ZADIM,[7] though it has also bean argued Ninzadim was a separate deity associated exclusively with seal cutters.
[8] Thorkild Jacobsen interpreted the name Ninmug as "lady vulva",[9] but it is now assumed that element mug refers to an unidentified cult utensil or building.
[3] In the Ur III and Old Babylonian periods, Ninmug could appear alongside her husband Ishum in cylinder seal inscriptions.
[18] Theophoric names invoking Ninmug are known, one example attested in sources from between Early Dynastic and Ur III times being Ur-Ninmug.
[10] It is possible that in the third millennium BCE, Hendursaga's wife was instead Dumuziabzu, the tutelary goddess of Kinunir (Kinirsha), a city in the state of Lagash, though in that period family relations between deities were often particularly fluid or uncertain.
[24] An Emesal text, possibly a lament for an unidentified dying god, mentions them both alongside goddesses such as Nintinugga, Ninisina, Ereš'ugga and Lisin.
[1] Her name was written as NIN-ĝa'uga or NIN-ug-ga, with the NIN sign in this case read as either ereš or égi based on provided glosses.
[27] It is possible that the confusion between her and Ninmug is responsible for the equation between the latter and Meme in a double column edition of the Weidner god list.
[8] However, Wilfred G. Lambert asserted that they should be considered two variant spellings of the name of a single deity, who could be viewed as the wife of both Ishum and Lugala'abba.
[30] In texts pertaining to the fashioning of divine statues, Ninmug could appear alongside other deities associated with crafts, such as Kusigbanda, Ninagala, Ninduluma and Ninkurra.
[32] It is assumed that Ninmug's role in this myth might be the reason why a single eršemma text equates her with Ninhursag, Dingirmah and Lisin.
When Inanna complains about not being assigned a domain, she mentions her alongside Aruru, Nanshe, Nisaba and Ninisina as goddesses who receives specific areas of influence from Enki.