The question "Who are you?" is one of those fundamental questions that is intimidating and almost unanswerable. It can mean so many different things, depending upon the desire of the person asking. Thus the questioner might be asking: Please place yourself in the structured schema that I use to describe society and the world around me. In other words, give me a series of tags that I can use to categorize you. The answer to such a demand needs must depend upon the categories and tags that the questioner recognizes. Fortunately there are a large series of such tags that are commonly and conventionally recognized. Thus the categories of nationality, ethnic origin, gender, occupation, income, place of residence, marital status, hobbies and interests, religion, and political affiliation. There is another meaning that the question might take, on the lines of "What is your essential self?", there being an implicit assumption that people have essential selves. As an example of this kind of question I will quote from the book, Dragonsbane by Barbara Hambly. The female protagonist, Jenny Waynest, is addressing the supporting character, Gareth: ... "Who are you, Gareth of Magloshaldon?" He started at that, and for an instant she saw fright and guilt in his gray eyes. He stammered, "I - I'm Gareth of - of Magloshaldon. It's a province of Bemaire..." Her eyes sought his and held them in the gray shadows of the trees. "And if you weren't not of that province, would you still be Gareth?" "Er - yes. Of course. I ..." "And if you were not Gareth?" she pressed him, holding his gaze and mind locked with her own. "Would you still be you? If you were crippled, or old - if you became a leper, or lost your manhood - who would you be then?" "I don't know -" "You know." An irony in this passage is that Gareth, at that point, is travelling under a false identity. The passage (and the book) presumes one of the great answers to the question of identity, which is that we have an inner essence which defines our self, the various attributes being trappings like the clothes we wear. Thanks to the author of this page Who are you?. I googlesd "who are you" and philosophy and found this page.