The brown-headed barbet was formally described in 1788 by the German naturalist Johann Friedrich Gmelin in his revised and expanded edition of Carl Linnaeus's Systema Naturae.

[3] Gmelin based his description on the "yellow cheeked barbet" that had been described and illustrated in 1776 by the naturalist Peter Brown from a specimen collected in Sri Lanka.

[5] Three subspecies are recognised:[5] The adult has a streaked brown head, neck and breast, and a yellow eye patch.

It forages on mangoes, ripe jackfruit, papaya, banana, figs and similar cultivated fruit trees.

Its habitat includes urban and country gardens; it tends to eschew heavy forest.