It's not about the Corleones

In evangelical lutheran church kids are assigned to have godparents at the baptism ceremony. In 2000 85% of Finns were members of evangelical lutheran church, which explains the popularity of the godparent-godchild tradition - even though today the number of church members has dropped into 77%. Many of those who are not members of any church are still nurturing the tradition: there are "civil godparents" or "goodparents".

For some reason godparents tend to give a spoon as a gift to the godchild 
at the baptism ceremony - here's one girly variation.

If you ask the church what is the main task of a godparent, they'd say it's all about taking care of the godchild's religious education. The closest to spiritual guiding I've gotten is consultation on the following questions: "From which hole does the soul sneak out in death? What if the heaven is crowded with Chinese and you can't fit in? How to make sure that mummy is really dead before wrapping it into shroud?"

If you ask me, being a godmother is all about being a trusted adult for the kid. Something cooler than the parents but still an adult. Being a godmother and a civil godmother is probably a greatest privilege I can think of: somebody wants me to be part of her or his child's life, officially. And that's a big thing.