Doing title research myself

[Mark Hu]

I had an unpleasant surprise while down at the Orange County, CA recorders office. They explained to me I could only search for recorded property documents by owner name or document number.
Does that leave me dependent on a real estate agent to provide me the name of the property owner from the mls? Is is ethical for me to ask my agent for the property owners name? That seems to be the only way I can do my own title search before putting in an offer.
Note we just wasted our time with an offer on a property that has a large lien from the us attorney's office.