Barnabus Barney Stinson

 Barney Stinson is one of five main characters on How I Met Your Mother. He is a histrionic in his mid-thirties, wears a suit, likes women with "daddy issues" and is frequently willing to offer his opinion. Barney is a huge womanizer, and has been described as a "high functioning sociopath" by his best friend Ted Mosby. Stinson has a plethora of strategies and rules designed to meet women, sleep with them, and discard them. Stinson is the only single character.

Barney likes to create crazy situations and then sit back and watch it all go down. He is also highly competitive and takes on "challenges" to complete outlandish tasks in order to prove his worth. He is proud and stubborn, and attempts to stand by his word no matter what. Barney is extremely naive at times, believing many lies his mother told him well into adulthood, such as believing that Bob Barker is his father.

Barney is an illusionist. His favorite types of magic tricks include fire. Barney uses them mostly to pick up women. His most common method of picking up women is telling them elaborate lies about himself, often using an alias. Many of his schemes for picking up women are in a book he has written called "The Playbook.

Barney is very well-connected and is the wealthiest member of the group. He frequently buys expensive items. However, he is also seen to have a gambling problem that he occasionally gets under control.

He speaks several languages. He has a thorough understanding of human behavior and uses this mainly to manipulate situations to his advantage (mostly to pick up women). Despite his eclectic and prodigious talents, Barney is lacking in several common skills, such as driving a car or using a screwdriver.

Barney lives by the "Bro Code", his own code of rules. He also has some nicknames; Mr. Awesome, The Barnacle, Barn Door, The Stinstonian, Swarley, Swarles (Barkley), B-Dawg, Stinson-natti, Barnman, Nestor Diaz, B-Nasty.