A godparent is someone who promises, at a baptism, to help a child and to teach Christian values. We use this word when we do not need to say man or woman — it covers godfather and godmother together. The job is care and faith, not the law. Though actually, students sometimes think a godparent will take the child if the parents die. That can happen if a family also writes it in a will, but godparent by itself does not give legal power. The word is a later, neater coinage, modelled on the older pair godfather and godmother.