Two names, one spelling apart, and a world of confusion between them. Nanna and Nana are not the same figure: Nanna is the Mesopotamian moon god, while Nana is a shortened form of the given name Anna or a title for grandmothers. The confusion is understandable, since both names appear across ancient texts, modern families, and everything in between.
The Mesopotamian moon god Nanna and the grandmotherly “Nana” share a spelling difference of one letter, but their origins, histories, and meanings could not be more different.
What Is Nanna?
Nanna is the Sumerian moon god, one of the oldest and most important deities in the Mesopotamian pantheon. His name appears in cuneiform tablets dating back to roughly 2500 BCE, making him one of the earliest named gods in human history. The Sumerians wrote his name as EN.ZU, meaning “lord of wisdom,” though they also called him Nanna, a name whose etymology remains debated among scholars.
Nanna was the son of Enlil, the god of air and storm, and Ninlil, the goddess of grain. His birth story is one of the strangest in Mesopotamian mythology: Enlil was exiled to the underworld for violating Ninlil, and she followed him there. Through a series of substitutions, Ninlil conceived Nanna and gave birth to him in the underworld, allowing him to rise to the heavens as the moon itself.
The moon god’s domain was Ur, the great city of southern Mesopotamia. There, his temple, the Ekishnugal, stood as one of the largest religious complexes of the ancient world. The ziggurat at Ur, built in his honor, still rises from the Iraqi desert today, a monument to a god who once commanded the night sky. For more on the broader pantheon, see our guide to Sumerian deities.
Where Did the Name Nana Come From?
Nana is a different name entirely, with roots in multiple independent traditions. The most common origin is as a diminutive of Anna, itself derived from the Hebrew Hannah, meaning “grace” or “favor.” This form appears across Europe, particularly in Slavic countries where Nana serves as an affectionate shortening of names like Anna or Anastasia.
The grandmotherly usage of Nana has a separate, more ancient lineage. The sound “na” is among the first syllables infants produce, which is why variations of it appear as kinship terms across unrelated language families. In Georgian, nana means “mother.” In Greek, nanna serves as an affectionate term for aunts or grandmothers. The English “nana” for grandmother likely emerged from this universal infant vocalization, spreading through British and Commonwealth usage in the nineteenth century.
There is also a third Nana, distinct from both the grandmother and the moon god. In the ancient Persian tradition, Nana (also written Nanaia or Nanaya) was a goddess of love and fertility, associated with the planet Venus. Her worship spread from Mesopotamia to Persia, where she appears in texts from the Achaemenid Empire (550-330 BCE) and later in Sogdian and Bactrian inscriptions along the Silk Road.
How Did the Two Names Become Confused?
The confusion between Nanna and Nana is modern, and it stems from the way ancient names pass through translation. When nineteenth-century Assyriologists first deciphered Sumerian cuneiform, they rendered the moon god’s name as Nanna, following the Sumerian pronunciation. But as scholarship spread to popular writing, the double “n” began to drop away in casual reference.
The problem compounds in the realm of grandmother names. Families who spell the title “Nana” often encounter the Mesopotamian god in a book or documentary and wonder if they have been using a divine name all along. They have not. The two names are etymologically unrelated, and the resemblance is coincidence.
A deeper layer of confusion comes from the goddess Nana of Persian tradition. Her name, sometimes spelled with a single “n,” is closer to the grandmother form than to the moon god’s. Yet she is a separate figure entirely, a fertility goddess with no connection to either the Sumerian moon or the English nursery. For a deeper look at how ancient names get muddled in translation, visit our section on mythological misconceptions.
What Did the Moon God Mean to the Mesopotamians?
The moon mattered more to the Sumerians than the sun did. This is difficult for modern readers to grasp, living as we do in a solar-centric world, but the evidence is clear: Nanna received more hymns and temples than Utu, the sun god, throughout Sumerian history.
The reason is practical. In the Mesopotamian climate, the moon’s phases provided the primary calendar. The Sumerian month began with the new moon, and the word for month, itud, was literally the word for moon. Farmers planted and harvested by lunar phases, priests scheduled festivals by the moon’s position, and the king’s legitimacy was tied to Nanna’s favor.
Nanna’s role as the god of wisdom followed from this calendrical function. The moon measured time, and time was the foundation of all knowledge. His temple at Ur employed astronomers who tracked the moon’s movements with remarkable precision, recording eclipses and calculating lunar cycles that would not be matched in Europe for over a thousand years.
How Was Nanna Worshipped?
The moon god’s cult centered on Ur, but his worship extended across Mesopotamia. Every major city maintained a shrine to Nanna, and his high priestess, often a daughter of the king, held enormous political power. The most famous of these priestesses was Enheduanna, daughter of King Sargon of Akkad, who served around 2300 BCE and composed hymns to Nanna that survive to this day.
The daily ritual at Ur followed a strict schedule. Priests woke the god’s statue each morning, bathed it, dressed it in fresh robes, and presented it with offerings of bread, beer, and meat. The statue was not a symbol of Nanna; it was Nanna, in the Mesopotamian understanding. The god dwelt within the carved wood and precious metal, and the priests were his servants.
The most significant festival was the akitu, celebrated at the new year. During this festival, the statue of Nanna traveled by boat from his temple to a special house outside the city, reenacting the god’s journey through the underworld. The king participated personally, grasping the god’s hand in a ritual that confirmed his divine right to rule. If the festival went well, the city prospered. If it failed, the king’s authority collapsed.
What Does Nana Mean in Modern Usage?
The grandmotherly Nana carries none of this divine weight. It is a domestic name, spoken in kitchens and nurseries, written in birthday cards and family texts. Its power is personal rather than cosmic, rooted in the bond between a child and an elder.
In the English-speaking world, Nana emerged as a distinct grandmother name in the late nineteenth century. The Oxford English Dictionary records its first use in 1884, though the spoken form is certainly older. It spread through Britain and its colonies, becoming especially common in Australia and New Zealand, where it remains one of the most popular grandmother names today.
The name’s appeal lies in its simplicity. A child can pronounce “nana” before “grandma” or “grandmother,” and the name grows with the child rather than being replaced. It is intimate without being infantilizing, warm without being saccharine. For many families, Nana is not a title but a person, a specific grandmother with her own history and quirks.
How Do the Two Names Compare?
The comparison between Nanna and Nana is less about the names themselves and more about what they represent. Nanna is a cosmic force, the measurer of time and the lord of wisdom, worshipped for thousands of years by millions of people. Nana is a personal figure, one grandmother among many, known only to her family and friends.
Yet both names speak to something fundamental about human experience. The moon god answered humanity’s need to understand the sky, to mark time, to find order in the chaos of the world. The grandmother answers a different need: the need for continuity, for care, for the transmission of family memory from one generation to the next.
There is a quiet poetry in the coincidence. The same syllables that once invoked the moon god in the temples of Ur now call a grandmother to the dinner table. The sacred and the domestic share a phonetic space, and neither is diminished by the comparison.
What Do People Get Wrong About Nanna and Nana?
The most common error is assuming the names are related. They are not. Nanna derives from Sumerian, Nana from Hebrew and infant vocalization. The resemblance is pure chance, and no amount of folk etymology can connect them.
A second error involves the goddess Nana of Persia. Some popular sources conflate her with the Sumerian moon god, treating “Nanna” and “Nana” as variant spellings of the same deity. This is incorrect. The Persian Nana was a goddess of love and fertility, associated with Venus, and her worship belongs to a different cultural stream than the moon god of Ur.
A third misconception holds that Nanna was a female deity. This likely stems from the association between the moon and femininity in later Western traditions, where lunar deities like Artemis and Selene are female. The Sumerian Nanna was male, as were most Mesopotamian moon gods. The shift toward a female moon deity came later, in Greek and Roman tradition.
FAQ
Is Nanna a female name? No, Nanna was a male deity in Mesopotamian religion. The association of the moon with femininity comes from later Greek and Roman traditions.
Is the goddess Nana the same as Nanna? No. The Persian goddess Nana (also Nanaia) was a deity of love and fertility, distinct from the Sumerian moon god Nanna.
Why do so many cultures use “nana” for grandmother? The sound “na” is among the first syllables infants produce, making it a natural basis for kinship terms across unrelated languages.
Closing
The distinction between Nanna and Nana is a lesson in how names travel through time, carrying different meanings in different contexts. The moon god of Ur and the grandmother in the kitchen share a sound but not a story. For more on how ancient deities shaped the myths we still tell, explore our guide to Mesopotamian mythology and the glossary of lunar deities. The night sky holds more names than we can count.