Secondary Characters.

Ted's future wife

The eponymous mother has been an unseen character so far. Present Ted hasn't met her yet, while Future Ted has only mentioned very little about her. In "Belly Full of Turkey" a stripper tells Ted that her name is Tracy, right before Future Ted makes a joke telling his kids that she is their mother. In "Wait for It", it is revealed that the short story of how they met involved her yellow umbrella. In "No Tomorrow", Ted finds the umbrella at a club and takes it home after attending a St. Patrick's Day party which she also attended but at which they did not meet. He says he was glad this happened, as he behaved badly at the party, getting drunk, impersonating someone to get free drinks on their tab, and telling a woman he wants to have sex with her, then never see her again. Stella (Sarah Chalke) mentions in passing to Ted when he tries to ask her out that she has only been out once to a party that year, which was St Patrick's Day, hinting that it may have been her yellow umbrella (this later turns out to be false). Future Ted strongly implies that his wife is a brunette, telling his children in "Shelter Island" that had he married the blonde Stella, they would have turned out to be blond (his children are both, like Ted, brunettes). On his first day of teaching as Professor Mosby, as seen in the season 4 finale "The Leap", he is seen in front of the classroom of students, one of which Future Ted says is the titular mother. But in the first episode of season 5, "Definitions", it is revealed that he was actually in the wrong classroom, Economics instead of Architecture. Then in "Girls Versus Suits", Ted dates a graduate student named Cindy (played by Rachel Bilson), whose roommate is his future wife—when in Cindy and the mother's apartment he picks up many of her belongings and comments on how compatible he and Cindy are (thinking they are Cindy's) and glimpses her foot as she disappears into her room after taking a shower. Ted finds out at this time that his future wife plays bass guitar in a band. Ted forgets to take the yellow umbrella with him when he goes out, and Future Ted mentions, "And this is how your mother got her yellow umbrella back." In the season 6 opener "Big Days" it is revealed Ted meets his future wife during a wedding at which he is the best man. Later in the episode "Glitter" Ted's old high school friend Punchy asks Ted to be the best man at Punchy's wedding. In the episode "False Positive" Robin asks Ted to be her future best man, should she ever get married. In the episode 'Challenge Accepted", it is revealed that Ted meets his future wife at Barney's wedding.

 

Ted's daughter and son 

Not much is known about them, except that they still do not know all the events that led to Ted meeting their mother and that they are in their late teens in the year 2030, meaning they probably were born sometime in the early 2012s. In his twenties, Ted apparently wanted to name the children Luke and Leia because in "Milk" Ted was told to "swear on his unborn son and daughter," to which he replied, "I swear on Luke and Leia." This is obviously a reference to Star Wars. The daughter is played by Lyndsy Fonseca, and the son is played by David Henrie.

 

Carl 

Played by Joe Nieves. Bartender at MacLaren's Bar, which is frequented by the main characters. In the pilot, he is dating a Lebanese girl. In "The Pineapple Incident" he writes his phone number on a very drunk Ted's arm to call if he gets lost. Although never stated in the show, creators Carter Bays and Craig Thomas mention on the Season 1 DVD that Carl’s last name is MacLaren and he owns the bar (thus the name). During Carter Bays and Craig Thomas's commentary track for The Pineapple Incident, it was stated that Joe Nieves, who plays Carl, received the part after the scene he was supposed to be in was cut from the pilot but no one had told him, and he turned up on set in full costume (he was meant to be a police officer). As no-one wanted to tell him that they had cut his scene, they gave him the role of Carl.

 

Ranjit 

Played by Marshall Manesh. Ranjit is the cab and limo driver from Bangladesh who drives the main characters around on a few occasions and, on one occasion, drinks champagne with them in MacLaren's bar. He also drives the limo right after Marshall and Lily are married. Ranjit helps Ted with his two-minute date with his dermatologist Stella in the episode "Ten Sessions" as well as driving Barney and Ted to Ted's 30th birthday party in the episode "The Goat". In episode 15 of season 5, Ranjit is heard speaking Persian in an argument in favor of ducks. Indeed, the actor is Iranian, but it appears as an inconsistency as Ranjit is supposed to be from Bangladesh, and therefore speak Bengali. In the episode Three Days of Snow he was at the airport to pick someone up when he saw Lily and when he learned she needed a ride he left the person he was supposed to pick to help Lily. Ranjit appears in 11 episodes; his latest appearance being in "Challenge Accepted".

 

Victoria 

Played by Ashley Williams. Baker at Buttercup Bakery. She and Ted met at a wedding reception for which she had made the cake, where they spend the night hanging around by themselves under the promise that they will never see each other again so as not to ruin their memory of that night. This promise is soon broken and they start up a relationship with each other. This is complicated when she is offered a cooking fellowship in Germany. They eventually decide that a long distance relationship cannot work and break up. A vision of her appears to Ted shortly before the break-up, when he lies to Robin about having already ended the relationship before the fact. Appears in 6 episodes- would have been made the mother if the show was canceled after the first season.

 

Stella Zinman

Played by Sarah Chalke. Ted's dermatologist, who removes his ill-advised butterfly tramp stamp tattoo. Ted attempts to convince her to go out with him over the course of the episode Ten Sessions. Stella initially refuses, telling Ted that she has to focus on being a mother to her daughter, but eventually agrees to go on a two minute lunch date. She and Ted begin dating soon after. Her future with Ted is intentionally left up in the air and there is some speculation that she may be Ted's eventual wife. In the last episode of season three, Ted proposed to Stella, and in the season four premiere she accepted. On Shelter Island, after her sister's wedding falls apart, she and Ted agreed to take over the wedding. She ends up leaving Ted at the altar and getting back together with Tony, her ex-boyfriend and the father of her daughter. Appears in nine episodes among seasons three and four. She later appears in Right Place Right Time as the mystery woman who all the tiny events of Ted's day cause him to meet; she is still with Tony and it is he, feeling guilty for stealing Ted's fiance, who gets Ted his teaching position. Shortly after Ted bumps into her on the street she moves with Tony to California where Tony made a movie about the love triangle called The Wedding Bride. The gang go to see it and are stunned about how much liberty Tony took with the story.

 

James Stinson 

Played by Wayne Brady. Barney's African-American and gay half-brother who also enjoys wearing suits and acts nearly the same as his brother - they used to go out on the pull together ('no crossover of targets'). He is married and he and his husband have one adopted son. In the sixth season episode "Cleaning House," James found his father, a man named Sam Gibbs. He has appeared in three episodes to date.

 

Brad 

Played by Joe Manganiello. A friend of Marshall's from law school. Brad and Marshall begin to hang out after they both discover they are single after getting dumped by their respective girlfriends, Kara and Lily. They go to brunch and to a musical together. Meanwhile, the bromance between Brad and Marshall becomes increasingly awkward. Eventually, Brad gets back together with his girlfriend. He also attends Marshall's bachelor party and wedding, where he chases away Lily's high school boyfriend, Scooter. He gets punched in the face by Barney when he tries to kiss Robin at a hockey game. Appears in 5 episodes.

 

Stuart 

Played by Matt Boren. A good friend of Ted and Marshall's who accompanies them to Marshall's bachelor party. Stuart also was about get married to another friend of Ted's, Claudia, but when Ted wanted to bring a guest to their wedding Claudia freaked out that no more people could come. Ted went behind Claudia's back and asked Stuart if he could bring Robin to his wedding and Stuart agreed. This resulted in Stuart and Claudia breaking up; Marshall eventually got the two of them back together. He briefly appears in Intervention, where in they intervene out of their concerns for him about his alcoholism. In Baby Talk, he and Claudia have a daughter named Esther.

 

Wendy the Waitress 

Played by Charlene Amoia. A waitress from MacLaren's bar. Characterized as sweet and somewhat naive, she appears well liked by The Gang who always refer to her as "Wendy The Waitress". Barney has had a brief relationship with her which ended up with her getting over the breakup easily, while he was convinced that she was trying to kill him and all the drinks she served him were poisoned. In that episode, Robin jokingly refers to her as "Wendy the Waitress-hyphen-Stinson." It is also revealed in season 6 that Wendy the Waitress falls in love and is later married to Marshall's ex-co worker Meeker (Daniel G. O'Brien) who found out they both hate Marshall after his "Go Green" fiasco. She and Meeker have three kids in the future.

 

Zoey Pierson

Played by Jennifer Morrison. Ted first meets Zoey, an activist who is protesting the destruction of an historic New York building, in the 6th season episode "Architect of Destruction". At first Ted is attracted to her even though he is the architect responsible for the building's inevitable demolition. When she finds out that Ted is the architect, she turns on him and spends the next few weeks staking out his house and office to torment him. In the episode "Natural History", Ted meets her rich husband, who calls himself the Captain, at a black-tie event at a museum that the whole gang is invited to because of Ted's building project with Goliath National Bank. Though their interactions that night are somewhat amicable, they leave the museum still hating each other. In the episode "Blitzgiving", she spends the night before Thanksgiving hanging out with the gang, minus Ted, which causes her to invite them to her place for Thanksgiving. In the end, Ted realizes that Zoey is disappointed because her stepdaughter hates her and won't spend Thanksgiving with her. Because of this understanding, Ted and Zoey become friends. Zoey is (by marriage) a van Smoot, whose family is shown to have owned the mansion in which Marshall and Lily were married and an apartment in the Alberta building^. In "Oh Honey", Zoey divorces the Captain, and Zoey and Ted realize they have fallen in love. In "Garbage Island", Future Ted reveals that Zoey is not the mother of his children, and that things did not end well between them. She and Ted broke up in Landmarks. She later appears in Challenge Accepted, and tries to get back together with Ted.

 

Don Frank 

Played by Benjamin Koldyke, Don is Robin's boyfriend and co-anchor in season 5. Robin gets very serious with him and decides to move in. Later he leaves her for a job in Chicago. In season 6, Robin is shown calling him but he never appears on screen. Appears in 6 episodes

 

Loretta Stinson

Played by Frances Conroy, Loretta is Barney's mother, who first appears in The Stinsons. She later appeared in Cleaning House when the group goes to her house when she wants to vacate. She was not a very moral person while her children were young, but later changed. She hides the identity of her children's father from them because she wants to be both their father and mother. Later she reveals the identity of the fathers to them in Season 6.