List of How I Met Your Mother characters
The main characters are: Ted Mosby, a romantic searching for "The One"; Barney Stinson, a womanizer; Robin Scherbatsky, a journalist who moved to New York in 2005; and Marshall Eriksen and Lily Aldrin, a long-term couple. Although the show is based around The Mother, her first appearance is not until the season eight finale.
List of How I Met Your Mother characters
Barney's doppelgänger is the most significant; Lily and Marshall want a sign from "the universe" that they are ready to have children, and agree to start trying once they see Barney's double. In "Doppelgangers", Marshall meets a cab driver who he thinks is Barney's doppelgänger, but who turns out to be Barney in disguise. Lily then sees a pretzel vendor and thinks he is the double; in reality, the vendor looks nothing like Barney but they begin to try to have children as Marshall claims it means that Lily is subconsciously ready to have kids. Barney's real doppelgänger, Doctor John Stangel, is revealed in "Bad News". He is a fertility doctor, making Lily uncomfortable as she is convinced he is Barney in disguise.