The mineral baricite was named in honor of Professor Ljudevit Barić, a world-renowned Croatian mineralogist, long-time curator, and director of the then Mineralogical-Petrological Museum, whose involvement in the Croatian scientific community marked the beginning of the intensive development of mineralogy and crystallography.

Baricite was discovered in 1976 by the famous Croatian mineralogist Branimir Darko Sturman and his Canadian colleague Joseph A. Mandarino, experts from the Department of Mineralogy and Geology at the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto. Barićit was first described in an article published in the well-known mineralogical journal The Canadian Mineralogist, and it was confirmed as a new mineral by the International Mineralogical Association (IMA) under the designation IMA1975-027.

Baricite was discovered in fractures of a siderite-iron formation in the Big Fish River Blow River area in the northeastern part of Yukon, Canada. The type locality of baricite is located near the Cross-cut Creek, about 1.5 km upstream from its confluence with Rapid Creek. Baricite is found in a mineral paragenesis together with quartz, siderite, vivianite, and lazulite, and numerous other phosphate minerals have been found nearby. In addition to the type locality, barićit has also been found in the Marlborough locality on the South Island of New Zealand.