Barney (given name)

Barney is a masculine given name, often a short form (hypocorism) of Barnard, Barnett and other names, and occasionally a nickname. It is also derived from the Slavic name Barni, the pet form of Barnim, which means "defender", and it was formerly a popular name throughout Poland. Notable people with the name include:

Given name

 * Barney Aaron (1800–1859), English-born American Hall of Fame lightweight bare-knuckle boxer
 * Young Barney Aaron (1836–1907), English-born American bare-knuckle boxer; son of Barney Aaron
 * Barney Barnato (1851–1897), British mining entrepreneur born Barnet Isaacs, one of those who gained control of diamond, and later gold, mining in South Africa
 * Barney Clark (died 1983), first human recipient of an artificial heart
 * Barney Corse (1799–1878), American abolitionist
 * Barney M. Giles (1892–1984), US Army Air Forces lieutenant general
 * Barney Hill (1922–1969), American who, with his wife, claimed to have been kidnapped by aliens
 * Barney F. Hajiro (1916–2011), US Army soldier awarded the Medal of Honor
 * Barney Kessel (1923–2004), American jazz guitarist
 * Barney Lebrowitz (1891–1949), better known as "Battling Levinsky", American Hall-of-Fame world champion light heavyweight boxer
 * Barney Martin (1923–2005), American actor
 * Barney McCosky (1917–1996), Major League Baseball outfielder
 * Barney Pelty (1880–1939), American Major League Baseball player
 * Barney Poole (1923–2005), National Football League player
 * Barney Ross (1909–1967), American Hall-of-Fame world champion boxer born Dov-Ber Rasofsky
 * Barney Sedran (1891–1964), American Hall-of-Fame basketball player
 * Barney E. Warren (1867–1951), American Christian hymnwriter and minister

Hypocorism

 * Bernard Barney Berlinger (1908–2002), American decathlete
 * Bernard Barney Carr (Gaelic footballer) (1923–2021), Irish Gaelic football player and manager
 * Barnett Barney Danson (1921–2011), Canadian politician and cabinet minister
 * Bernhard Barney Dreyfuss (1865–1932), owner of the Pittsburgh Pirates baseball team
 * Barnett Barney Frank (born 1940), American former politician
 * Barnaby Barney Harwood (born 1979), British actor and television presenter
 * Bernard Barney Herbert (1889–1949), Australian rules footballer
 * Bernard Barney Hudson (1906–1971), English rugby union and rugby league footballer
 * Bernard Barney McKenna (1939–2012), Irish musician and a founding member of The Dubliners
 * Berna Barney Oldfield (1878–1946), American automobile racer and pioneer
 * Barnet Barney Rosset (1922–2012), owner of Grove Press, and publisher and Editor-in-Chief of the magazine Evergreen Review
 * Bernard Barney Wilen (1937–1996), French saxophonist

Nickname

 * Barney Bigard (1906–1980), American jazz clarinetist and tenor saxophonist
 * Barney Carr (1897–1971), Australian rules footballer
 * Barney Chapman (1939-2020), Texan Dairy Queen owner and rancher
 * Barney Greenway (born 1969), British extreme metal vocalist
 * Barney McCallum (1926–2019), given name David Brace McCallum, coinventor of the racket sport pickleball
 * Barney Roos (1888–1960), American automotive engineer, co-designer of the Willys MB Jeep
 * Raymond van Barneveld (born 1967), Dutch professional darts player

Fictional characters

 * Barney the Dinosaur, title character of Barney & Friends, a children's TV show about a singing purple dinosaur host, formerly a sometimes singing blue dinosaur host in the early pilot video series of Barney & the Backyard Gang consisting three-part episodes from 1980s.
 * Barney Barton, older brother and arch-enemy of the superhero Hawkeye in the Marvel Comics universe
 * Barney Bear, the title character of the 1939-1954 animated shorts Barney Bear
 * Barney Calhoun, a playable character in Half-Life: Blue Shift and a major character in the Half-Life 2 series
 * Barney Collier, from the Mission: Impossible TV series, portrayed by Greg Morris
 * Barney Cousins, fictional kidnapper from the 1993 movie The Vanishing
 * Barney Fife, from The Andy Griffith Show
 * Barney Google, a comic strip character in Barney Google and Snuffy Smith
 * Barney Gumble, from The Simpsons
 * Barney Martin, a wandering circus boy The Barney Mystery Series of children's books by Enid Blyton
 * Barney Miller, a police captain in the TV show Barney Miller
 * Barney Ross, the leader of The Expendables
 * Barney Rubble, from The Flintstones
 * Barney Stinson, from the CBS television series How I Met Your Mother, portrayed by Neil Patrick Harris
 * Barney Stockman, from the 1987 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles animated TV series
 * Barney, a sheepdog in the short-lived British animated children's TV series Barney