Aruru was a Mesopotamian goddess. The origin of her name is presently uncertain. While initially considered an independent deity associated with vegetation and portrayed in hymns as violent, she eventually came to be viewed as analogous Ninhursag. Her name could also function as an epithet of goddesses such as Nisaba and Ezina-Kusu. She was often called the older sister of Enlil. Her cult centers most likely were the cities of Kesh, Adab and Irisaĝrig. She appears in a number of literary texts, some of which preserve information about her original character. She is also present in the Epic of Gilgamesh, which portrays her as the creator of Enkidu.

The etymology of the theonym Aruru (^dA-ru-ru, 𒀭𒀀𒊒𒊒) is considered either uncertain or unknown. A connection with Sumerian a-ru or a-ri, which can be translated as "the one who lets the seed flow," has been deemed implausible by Manfred Krebernik, as this term is only used in this sense to refer to men. Thorkild Jacobsen initially suggested the explanation "the germ loosener," though he eventually abandoned it in favor of translating the name as "outpour of water," or implicitly "outpour of amniotic fluid," which is now considered a mistranslation, as the homophone arūru means "outlet of a canal," not "outflow."

Gonzalo Rubio states that like other Mesopotamian theonyms of similar structure, such as Zababa, Alala, Belili, Bunene or Kubaba, Aruru's name likely did not originate in Sumerian or any of the Semitic languages, though he also notes theories classifying them as examples of words from a hypothetical substrate language referred to as "proto-Euphratean" in old scholarship are now viewed critically in Assyriology. Jeremy Black stated that a "pre-Sumerian" origin of Aruru's name cannot be ruled out, though caution is necessary, as she is not attested before the Third Dynasty of Ur.

It has been suggested that the theonyms ^da.ru, attested in a god list from Abu Salabikh, and ^dE₄-ru₆, referring to Sarpanit, might be etymologically related to Aruru's name.

Julia M. Asher-Greve states that a variant form of the name prefixed with the sign nin, "mistress," is also attested, which according to her is analogous to the interchange between the forms Azimua and Nin-Azimua. However, according to Antoine Cavigneaux and Manfred Krebernik, in the god list An = Anum the name Nin-Aruru designates a minor goddess from the court of Ninhursag, designated as one of her six gud-balaĝ, literally "bull lyres." Krebernik treats her as a separate servant deity.

The oldest known sources associate Aruru with vegetation, but do not portray her as a goddess of birth or as a creator deity. Specific plants mentioned in compositions dedicated to her include poplar, date palm, cedar, Prosopis and the unidentified teme and marmaḫ. She was also portrayed as a powerful and violent deity whose behavior was poetically compared to that of a bull or a viper. While she could be referred to as ama, according to Jeremy Black despite its literal meaning this term does not necessarily denote her as a mother, and can also be translated as "venerable woman" or simply "female." Julia M. Asher-Greve, in her analysis of the use of epithets "mother" and "father" to refer to Mesopotamian deities, states that they also could be used to describe to a given deity's position of authority. Black concluded that it would be inaccurate to refer to Aruru understood as a distinct deity as a mother goddess, as the only sources which describe her directly as a mother of mankind or other gods also syncretise her with other goddesses.

While Aruru was originally a distinct deity, she eventually came to be conflated with various goddesses of birth who at some point became interchangeable with each other. However, Joan Goodnick Westenholz concluded that at least in Sumerian sources, Aruru never came to be fully conflated with any of them, and compares her case to that of Ninmena. Jeremy Black noted that while syncretism is impossible to deny, known sources do preserve information which seemingly pertains to originally individual cults of the goddesses from this category, including Aruru. He proposes that she was initially a minor goddess from the pantheon of Adab and Kesh whose cult was eventually subsumed under Ninhursag's, leading to conflation of the two and to the perception of Aruru herself as a goddess of birth. Aruru's name is used interchangeably with Ninhursag's in one of the Temple Hymns. It is presumed that in this case, it is meant to reflect that the latter occupied a position of authority in the pantheon. In the Old Babylonian Nippur god list, Aruru is one of the nine goddesses of birth listed after Šulpae, the husband of Ninhursag. It is not certain if at this point in time they were understood as names of one goddess, or as closely affiliated deities.

In a hymn to Nisaba, this goddess is referred to as the "Aruru of the land," which according to Westenholz is meant to highlight her high status, rather than point at a connection to birth. In the earliest copies, dated to the Ur III period, the name is written as a-ru₁₂-ru₁₂, without the dingir sign, the divine determinative used to designate theonyms, though the standard writing, with a dingir, is employed in the later Old Babylonian copies. It has been interpreted as an appellative. In other contexts where this theonym occurs as an epithet of this goddess, or of Ezina-Kusu, it most likely reflects their respective roles as vegetation deities,