As far as the origin of the term goes, Mario Puzo said in an interview, “In Italian family culture, when you’re a little kid, you called all the friends of your parents ‘godfather’ and ‘godmother’ the way in American culture you called all family friends ‘aunt’ and ‘uncle,’ even though they’re not your aunt and uncle.” But he was the first one to use it in this particular way, of course!
I grew up very, very, very, very (molto) Italian and neither I nor any of my 5 siblings nor anyone in the neighborhood used it in that way. We had specific godfathers and godmothers from birth at the baptism. One each.
