Did he use Barry Soetoro at Occidental College? Some other alumni from that era (1979-81) say they knew him as Barry Obama. Was the first time he used Barack Obama when he was enrolled at Columbia?
Occidental College publishes a freshman “Lookbook” which is a guide for incoming freshmen. The 1979-1980 Lookbook lists him as “Barack Obama.”
Also, two poems by a student named “Barack Obama” were published in the Spring 1981 issue of “Feast,” a 51-page student literary journal that described itself as “a semi-annual journal of short poetry and fiction collected from the Occidental College community.”
Obama at Oxy:
http://www.oxy.edu/our-story/oxy-people/obama-oxy