Name: Pallas Athena
Family relations: father: Zeus, mother; Metis ("Knowledge").
Place of Birth: mount Olympus, Greece
Image: wearing a helmet and armour, spear and shield; a verigin goddess.
Function: protecting deity, deity of wisdom (more about this further on).
In other cultures: some aspects of Mesopotamian deities, like Ishtar, occur in the picture that Greeks held of Pallas, althoug Pallas is a virgin.
The Romans called her Minerva, a derivation from the Italo-Etruscan name Menerva (supposedly meaning "gifted with wisdom").

Story:
Metis was pregnant with Pallas and the child's father was Zeus. Zeus didn't want the child to be born, since he was afraid that he would then lose his power to his offspring. So he took the unborn child out of Metis' belly and ate it (Zeus is recalled having taken his unborn children on more occasions, like the taking away of the unborn Dionysos from Semele and carrying the baby to full growth and birth in his thigh). When the child Pallas was ready to be born, Zeus' head started to ache tremendously, which almost made him mad. His son Hephaestus, the blacksmith god, had to appear with an ax, to split Zeus' head open. As this had been done, little Pallas Athene jumped out of Zeus' head in full armour. After her divine childhood, she went to Attica, where she contested with Poseidon to name the new city, which had been founded there. The two dieties contested each by giving the city a precious gift. The citizens had to decide which gift they appreciated the most and its donator would be given the honor of granting the new city its name. Poseidon (the earth shaker and horse god) gave the city a horse, which was highly appreciated by the citizens. Pallas Athena gave the city an olive tree and the prospect of the fabrication of dozens of products from it and its offspring, meaning much wealth from good trade in the future. The citizens, having the trading blood in their veins, appreciated this gift even more highly and so it came to pass, that the newly founded and shining city was called ATHENAI, the Athens. Poseidon, of course, felt much offended.
Athena grew out to be not only a wisdom deity, but also the protector (of cities, heroes like Herakles and Theseus, little children, the sick and healthy, trade, crafts and artisans, teachers and students). In fact, she was a protective healer goddess as well, although she seems to have had this function especially in Italy, predominantly in the Etruscan religious culture.
Athena is and remains a virgin. Greek and Roman mythic tradditions recall of gods getting close to this goddess, to lay their hand on her, but her reactions to this are always very defensive and strong. No one, not even Ares the warrior god, ever gets to lay his hand on Athena, nor Apollo, who, in his divine functionality, comes quite close to her.
Nevertheless, Athena (and in Italy Menerva/Minerva) has motherly feelings for those protected by her; she therefore has been wordhipped as "kourotrophos" ("nourisher of small children") and near the Acropolis in Athens is a hilly mound, once dedicated to Pallas, where women could crowl over the ground on their bare bottoms, to get fertility if they lacked it. Later, in Christian times, this mound was dedicated to the Holy Virgin Mary.
This gets me to the last aspect of Athena I would like to describe and that is the, for early christians, obvious relationship between the mother-virgin goddess Athena/Minerva (although the official mythical records don't tell of a son of Athan/Minerva) and the mother-virgin Mary, the mother of Christ. For the newly founded christian society in the Ancient World, this relationship was quite a fact. Places where Athena in Greece/Minerva in Italy had been worshipped have been adapted by christians to be reformed into places of worship for the Holy Virgin. Athena/Minerva-temples became churches for the Holy Virgin (a remarkable example in Rome: a church called "Santa Maria sopra Minerva"(Holy Mary on top of Minerva): a church for Mary built on top of the remains of a Minerva temple).