Yes; and that's a very different question than asking "who he is." The latter question goes to personal qualities (virtues), to personal actions and their fruits. "What's your name?" is a comparatively impersonal question that, in this passage, ultimately goes to one's native land and family/clan connections. Even such an extraordinary figure as Odysseus would not be understood as a unique individual in the culture formed by Homer.
Plato was perhaps the first thinker to conceive of man as he is "in himself" -- and set off a revolution that continues to reverberate to this day. Truly, Plato marks a profound intellectual and cultural turning point in human history.
Thanks so much for writing, cornelis. It's good to see you again!
Which is why we appreciate Homer, who certainly gives us an understanding of this particular man as he is "among others."
Homer, who delights in the confusion of the barbarian who thinks Odysseus is a nobody, who plays up the error of those that mistake him for a god or treat him like a beast, who in many ways is already way ahead of Socrates--that first intellectualist who conceived himself in a movement toward individuality as when divorced from land, friends, son, wife, and body--Homer, who gives Odysseus his most profound individuality as unmistakably Odysseus,--not a anqrwpoV but the anhr--whose namelessness is exorcised by the token of industry, a cloak woven by his wife.
Book Eight and especially the irony of King Alcinoos trying to be civil makes sense as long as Odysseus is the true name of him who weeps and not the onomatopoeic gurgle of an outiV--no one in particular--of the one whose existence is in doubt, even by Odysseus himself, whose name pains and prides him.