I think there's some confusion here as to whether godparent = person who will care for your child if you die. That is not a godparent, although I guess some people might name the same people to be godparents and guardians in the event of their death...

You pick people that will be great parents in the case of your absence. Who cares if they are family or friends. If you have a crappy family, obviously choose friends. If you have a great brother or sister, choose them. Your decision, in the best interest of the child.

We used DHs cousin & his wife. My SIL & her husband are crappy people.

In our family (Irish Catholic), we only really go outside the family when we run out of family! I am a Godparent myself to my younger sibling (she is 12 years younger) as my older sisters are to their younger brother (shared responsibility to keep the peace!). For my kids, my siblings and my dh's siblings are all the Godparents. Thankfully we have four kids and were able to use all of them!!

Friends come and go. I've never met my godmother -- she drifted out of my mother's life when I was still a baby.

Pick siblings.

You mean the baby's own sibling? If they're sufficiently older than the baby, I think it is LOVELY. I have four siblings who are much younger than me. I was not the official godparent of any of them but certainly took on that role - kind of like a parent figure, but not a parent figure, just someone older and allegedly wiser (okay, well, I tried!) to help guide them in life with a perspective distinct from the actual parent's. I would have been honored to have this role made official by the godparent title.

As for your own siblings, I think that's done constantly - not unusual at all.

In my world the godparents were non-family, the honorary aunts/uncles. We did a mix - used 3 nonfamily and 1 sibling. Immediately I wished we hadn't used the sibling - it created hugely hurt feelings w/ the siblings who weren't chosen. Purely friends would have been smarter!

Funny, I've always thought of them as family members: aunts,uncles, etc.

It would feel weird to me to ask a nonfamily member to be a godparent; would probably only do this if we ran out of family members to ask? Actually, still probably wouldn't. Would probably "double up"!

Irish-American Catholic here. . .

We used siblings for godparents...until we ran out of siblings then we used my cousins.

In Dh's family, his parents had "couples"as godparents. For example, my son's godmother is Dh's sister, and his godfather is MY brother--so my son's godparents aren't a "couple".
But Dh's godmother is his mom's sister and his godfather is his godmother's (now ex) husband. Dh's brother's godparents are a couple who were family friends--so all the godparents are married to each other.

ONLY relatives in my family and extended family. Traditionally, the family just doesn't value friendships in the same way. (Italian background.) On some level it's tougher to impose on people you aren't related to, and in this family, it's kind of expected that you will impose and will hurt feelings if you don't ask someone to (help you move, install a wood floor, change a toilet out). Also, evidence shows that even the best friendships kind of peter out and people go their own ways. I know not everyone is like that, just my extended family.

Funny, but it kind of reminds me of the time when one of the Sopranos tried to go into an honest business with a non-family member (if memory serves it was the family member who just came out of jail and they wanted him to stay straight), and he ended up killing his business partner and when he and Tony were cleaning up the mess, one or the other said: "it's really hard doing business with non-family" or something like that.

In my husband's big, Italian, Catholic family, all of the cousins have aunts or uncles (siblings of their parents) as their godparents.

Is this weird to you? I've always thought of godparents as non-family members for some reason (at least that has been the custom in my family), but DH thinks we should keep things simple and ask our own sibs (I have a brother, he has a sister). Thoughts? (FWIW, this is just honorary, not the selection of who would care for DS in our will.)