What part of speech is the word 'named' in the phrase, "like a person named Billy Joe"?

If the sentence was "a person named Billy Joe", "named" would be considered a verb. Here is a link to more grammar tips.

http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/grammar/

The word named is a participle (a verb form used as an adjective). "named Billy Joe" is a participle phrase that describes "person". As an eighth grade grammar teacher, I deal with this regularly in our curriculum, and feel that sentence diagramming helps to develop people's knowledge of sentence structure, helping them to write more interesting sentences and essays.