While I can't talk about Lithuania and my knowledge on the Norman invasions of Italy is scarce, I hope I can bring some light about the first case:

The county of Barcelona was created, among many other small lordships, around 800 as a buffer zone when Charlemagne conquered the region in a swift campaign and, for some generations, it was put under the authority of more powerful lords, such as the counts of Toulouse or the dukes of Gascony and Aquitaine. Over the next century, the counts of Barcelona managed to unite most of the other lordships of the Spanish March, such as the counties of Osona, Cerdaña and Pallars, under their sovereignty, some of them by inheritance, others by feudal contracts, taking advantage of the weakness of the crumbling Carolingian Empire to increase their autonomy and independence: by the year 988, count Borrell II felt confident enough to refuse to pay homage to the newly crowned king of France, Hugh Capet.

Although this is usually considered the starting point of Barcelona's independence, and surely Borrell's desdendants acted as independent rulers, the truth is that the counties united under Barcelona were still, nominally at least, under the authority of the Frankish crown.

In 1134, the king of neighbouring Aragón, Alfonso the Battler, died without issue, and the throne passed to his brother, Ramiro, who had lived all his adult life as a monk and had close to no interest in rulling anything. As such, when he was proclaimed king, he married a frankish noblewoman, had a daughter, Petronila, arranged her bethrothal to the 20 year old count of Barcelona, Ramón Berenguer IV, naming him princeps of Aragón (so he could act as regent of his daughter until she came of age but, at the same time, keeping the royal title by himself) and making him swear that he would not try to usurp the crown and respect his will of passing it to Petronila's sons. Then, Ramiro abdicated, although he kept the royal dignity until his death, and went back to his good old monastery.

When Petronila grew up, she married Ramón, by whom he had a son, Alfonso. This Alfonso, born in 1157, succeded his father as count of Barcelona in 1162 and, in 1164, his mother abdicated the Aragonese throne on him and retired to a monastery. Thus, in 1164, the county of Barcelona (and those linked to it) united with the already kingdom of Aragón to form the Crown of Aragón.

This, you may be thinking, could have created a problem with the French monarchy, for it was, at least on paper, the legitimate overlord of Barcelona (it's a similar case to that of William the Conqueror being both duke of Normandy and king of England: as duke, he was a french vassal, but as king, he could not be vassal of another monarch). This was eventually solved by Alfonso's grandson, king Jaime I, who signed the Treaty of Corbeil with Louis IX of France.

This treaty was signed in 1258 to put an end to a decades-long conflict of sovereignties between Aragón and France along Barcelona and Occitania (Alfonso and his son, Pedro II, the father of Jaime I, had also inherited some occitan lordships over which they had fought with France since the starting of the century): through it, Jaime I rennounced to his claims to Provence and Toulouse and, in exchange, Louis IX rennounce to his own claims of feudal overlordship over Barcelona and its satellite counties.

So, to sum up, the counts of Barcelona never claimed kingship because they never were really independent. Besides this, kings in the Middle Ages basically had to be recognized by the Papacy (this is how the counts of Sicily actually became kings of Sicily, although I'll leave the Normans to someone who knows them better than I do, and also how the last count of Portugal became the first king of Portugal), and the counts never even looked for that recognition: you didn't need to be a king to be a powerful figure, and both Ramón Berenguer IV and his father, Ramón Berenguer III, can prove me right.

Also, bear in mind that, while Paradox makes its research and such, they have to simplify things for gaming reasons, and in reality, noble titles weren't as vertical as they are in the games. For example, the count of Castile in the 10th century was basically a one-to-one to his overlord, the king of León, and many french nobles, like the dukes of Normandy and Aquitaine and the presumably inferior counts of Toulouse or Champagne, were at times richer and more powerful overall than the kings themselves. Reality is often more complicated.