I know that the iron age came after the bronze age and that it is called the iron age because it saw the widespread use of iron. What I would like to know is whether there was any forged iron at all before it became a common metal?
Yes, most definitely. Meteoric iron has been available at all times in prehistory, and was until historic times still sometimes used by otherwise metal-less societies like the Greenlandic Inuit. But apart from that, iron is also a byproduct of bronze production. Many copper ores also contain minor amounts of iron, and this iron would have accumulated (together with a number of other impurities) on the side of crucibles used in copper production. While generally of too low quality to be used for proper tools, it could be used by the bronzeworker himself for chisels and the like for decorating bronze. One of the earliest of these examples is the iron 'nail' from the 12th century BC in the Netherlands. Tutankhamun also had an iron dagger, in the 14th century BC.