Custom being a prominent, if not a controlling, factor in the giving of names, it may happen that the deity appearing as an element in a name is one who, for various reasons, is no longer worshipped, or whose worship has diminished in significance at the time we meet with the name.

Again, deities of very restricted local fame, deities that occupy the inferior rank of mere spirits or demons in the theological system of the Babylonians, may still be incorporated in proper names.
Lastly, in view of the descriptive epithets by which some deities are often known, as much as by their real names, it frequently happens in the case of proper names that a deity otherwise known is designated by one of his attributes.

Thus we find in legal documents of the second period a goddess, Da-mu-gal, who is none other than the well-known Gula, the great healing deity; Ud-zal, who is identical with Ninib, and so written as the god of 'the rising sun';[185] and Mar-tu (lit., 'the west god'), which is a designation of Ramman.[186] Bearing in mind all these considerations, we find in the tablets of the first period, so far as published,[187] the same deities that are met with in the historical inscriptions: En-lil, Bau, En-zu (or Sin), Nin-girsu, Nin-gish-zida, Nin-mar, Nana, Nina, Shul-pa-uddu, and others.

No doubt a complete publication of the Telloh archives will furnish some--not many--new deities not occurring in the historical texts of this period.

A rather curious feature, illustrated by these temple archives, and one upon which we shall have occasion to dwell, is the divine honors that appear to have been paid towards the end of the first period of Babylonian history to some of the earlier rulers, notably Gudea and Dungi.[188] Alongside of wine, oil, wheat, sheep, etc., offered to Bau, Nin-gish-zida, and Shul-pa-uddu, the great kings and _patesis_ of the past are honored.