Discovered 1916 Mar. 3 by M. F. Wolf at Heidelberg.

Named in honor of the American astronomer Edward Emerson Barnard (1857–1923), great observer and star photographer who discovered many double stars, 17 comets, the Jupiter satellite Amalthea (1892) and the high proper motion star which is named after him. (H 81; AN 215, 471 (1922))

Barnard is also honored by a lunar crater, a crater on the Mars surface and a region on the Jupiter satellite Ganymede.