Barry Soetoro's Identity and Relationship to the Name Barack Obama

As many are aware, political opponents of Barack Obama have made an issue over his birth certificate. Various organizations, maybe most notably the so-called 'birthers',
 maintain that the birth certificate presented while he was running for president wasn't actually his, even though the Hawaii state government, the state of his birth, says that it is.

It goes further. Through various research efforts, many conspiracy theorists say that Barack Obama is actually Barry Soetoro and that somewhere along the way he changed his name to Barack Obama.

These believing that Barack Obama is actually Barry Soetoro allege that President Obama was not born in the United States. According to them, Barack Hussein Obama was born in Kenya, moved to the United States as a young man, and changed his name from Barry Soetoro to Barack Obama. Their basic premise is that they believe he was not born in the United States and therefore is ineligible to be President of the United States. Their other point is that each time President Obama signs his name, it shouldn't count since he really isn't Barack Obama, but is actually Barry Soetoro.

Furthermore, they say, since Barack Obama took the oath of office using the name Barck Obama, he never really took the oath of office since his actual name is Barry Soetoro.

Make sense?

Generally speaking, the questions of whether Barack Obama is a natural born United States citizen and whether or not his actual name is indeed Barack Obama are raised by fringe groups. The mainstream media pays little attention to the questions at this point as they are thought to have been well researched and ultimately discredited.

But today, something is up as the name "Barry Soetoro" has rocketed to the top position of Internet searches. Sometimes, some of the groups trying to promote awareness of their cause figure out ways to manipulate search volumes, thereby gaining exposure for their topics.