The wizard SHAZAM's name is an acronym of those deities who grant the wizard, and the Marvel Family, a portion of their powers. The deities involved appear to vary from character to character.
| Captain Marvel | Mary Marvel | Black Adam | SHAZAM | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Deity | Attribute | Deity | Attribute | Deity | Attribute | Deity | Attribute | |||
| Solomon | Wisdom | Selena | Grace | Shu | Stamina | Marzosh | Stamina | |||
| Hercules | Strength | Hippolyta | Strength | Heru | Swiftness | Arel | Speed | |||
| Atlas | Stamina | Ariadne | Skill | Amon | Strength | Ribalvei | Power | |||
| Zeus | Power | Zephyrus | Speed | Zehuti | Wisdom | Voldar | Strength | |||
| Achilles | Courage | Aurora | Beauty | Aton | Power | Elbiam | Courage | |||
| Mercury | Speed | Minerva | Wisdom | Mehen | Courage | Lumiun | Wisdom | |||
Although no distinction is made between the source of Captain Marvel's and Mary Marvel's powers in the modern SHAZAM series, in the not-so-politically-correct past, Mary received her powers from her very own "family" of goddesses.
I guess writers in the 40's felt that grace, skill and beauty were more important to a super-heroine than courage, stamina and power. :-) Discerning scholars will also note that one of the "goddesses", Zephyrus, is actually a male.
In keeping with his Egyptian origin, Teth-Adam (later to be called Black Adam) was gifted his powers from Egyptian deities.
In the 1987 mini-series, Teth-Adam's powers were knowingly drawn from these egyptian deities. In the 1995 series, it is revealed that Blaze, actually the demon-spawned daughter of SHAZAM, conspired with Set to have Teth-Adam draw his powers from the Egyptian gods, instead of the gods with whom SHAZAM had made his pact for super-human power.
Interestingly, in the 1995 version, SHAZAM draws his powers from six gods whose names form the acronym "MARVEL".