Her temple at Agade, known as E-ul-mash, is the object of Sargon's devotion, which makes her, with Bel and Shamash, the oldest triad of gods mentioned in the Babylonian inscriptions.

But the name which finally displaces all others, is Ishtar.
Where the name originated has not yet been ascertained, as little as its etymology,[67] but it seems to belong to Northern Babylonia rather than to the south.
In time, all the names that we have been considering--Innanna, Nana, and Anunit--became merely so many designations of Ishtar.

She absorbs the titles and qualities of all, and the tendency which we have pointed out finds its final outcome in the recognition of Ishtar as the one and only goddess endowed with powers and an existence independent of association with any male deity, though even this independence does not hinder her from being named at times as the associate of the chief god of Assyria--the all-powerful Ashur.

The attempt has been made by Sayce and others to divide the various names of Ishtar among the aspects of Venus as morning and evening star, but there is no evidence to show that the Babylonians distinguished the one from the other so sharply as to make two goddesses of one and the same planet.
It is more in accord with what, as we have seen, has been the general character of the Babylonian pantheon, to account for the identification of Ninni, Nana, and Anunit with Ishtar on the supposition that the different names belonged originally to different localities.

Ishtar was appropriately denominated the brilliant goddess.