RAF brat too, so I grew up all over the shop. Thus “where were you born?” results in the answer “London”, since it is true.
I lived in the city where I was born for about six weeks. Then I went back to the UAE, where my parents were living at the time. (My mom was here for a few months to have me, but my dad stayed there.) I did come back to the states a few years later. And now I’m living in the city where I was born.
Edited to answer your question: So I say I was born in New York City.
I usually say I was born in Westminster (California), although my parents lived in Mission Viejo at the time. However, we moved to Massachusetts when I was 2 and I grew up there, so when people ask where I’m from, I say Massachusetts.
I’m starting to think someone’s putting together dossiers on us Dopers. Every once in a while we get these seemingly mundane questions and if one were to track the answers, he or she would be able to put together a fairly extensive background on each of us.
Suffice it to say I was born thousands and thousands of miles from the place I actually grew up in. When people ask where I was born, I have to give that city because that’s where Mom and Pop lived when they had me and that’s where my birth is registered. But home is actually the town where I grew up. Except for the first few weeks of my life, by the way, I’ve never been anywhere near the city where I was born.
“Where were you born?”
Richmond, Texas.
“Where are you from?” OR “Where did you grow up?”
Nashville, Tennessee.
I consider the first question a request for a specific piece of information. Richmond had the closest hospital and I have zero recollection of wherever we were actually living at the time.
Just to be clear, my Dad’s air force was the non-royal one in the States. I was born in Florida (so they tell me, I personally have no memory of the place).
Actually I didn’t intend people to reply by saying where they were born at all! I think some people misinterpreted my question. 
The intent was merely to ask whether you consider your birthplace to be your actual physical birthplace, or the place that your family lived when you were born (assuming they are different).
Sinister bonus questions… What’s your mother’s maiden name? And the name of your first pet? And which bank do you use? 
One of my children’s birth certificate lists Honolulu, Hi., but he was born about 1300 miles from there, on the Midway Ils…
I give a state, and say some army base.
Where were you born? Methuen, MA, the actual location of the hospital since it’s actually where I was born.
Where did you grow up? Um… I lived in Lawrence, MA until I was ten, then moved to Raymond NH (this omits a couple places I lived, but neither were even a year)
See, this is the thread drift I was talking about!
I’m not asking where you were born…
I was born in Lexington, KY, but we lived 90 minutes away in Beattyville. Very few people under age 50 or so were born in Beattyville, since there’s no hospital there.
When people ask where I was born, I say Lexington, and if they ask where I’m from, and we’re in the state, I say Beattyville. If I’m not in the state, I just say “Kentucky, out in the sticks”.
Oddly enough, I kind of think of Lexington as home now, since I went to college and med school, made most of my friends, and met and fell in love with my wife there. I feel more of a connection there than I do to Beattyville.
Yeah, me, too. Except Florida instead of Maryland.
It would never occur to me that by asking “where were you born?” someone might actually mean “where are you from”? To me they are distinct, separate questions. (Certainly when we fill out immigration forms or get new passports, we put the literal place of birth.)
My son was born in South Africa but never lived there. During the height of anti-American sentiment when Bush started bombing Iraq, a lot of my American friends also living in Egypt lied about their nationality and said they were Canadian. (I’m too truthful to do that; I’d just tell the truth and cringe and look apologetic.)
During this time the greengrocer asked my son what country he was from (he was only about 5 at the time). My son had apparently noticed our discomfort with telling our nationality, so he said softly “American” and added loudly “BUT I WAS BORN IN SOUTH AFRICA.”
That moment made me realize just how much even small children can pick up on the unspoken attitudes around them.
I tell people I was born in Bozeman, MT, which is where the hospital is. If they are just wondering where I lived as a child, it’s close enough…the town we lived in is called Manhattan (pop. ~1000) and is 20 miles away. Some people have heard of Bozeman, but almost nobody has heard of Manhattan (well, that one, at least.)
The hospital in which I was born is actually in the town where I was raised. But it’s a very small town, not terribly well-known, so I usually just say “Ohio,” and only mention the town if asked further. Two of my boys were born in Cleveland, where they’ve also been raised; my third son was born in a suburban hospital near Cleveland but will, I expect, just say “Cleveland” if asked. We really have had no other connection to that 'burb.
I always say “San Diego” to both questions, as both Lemon Grove and Spring Valley are far too obscure to mention.
I was born in St. Stephen, NB, Canada. Which is all I bother to say, since I was raised in a town about 20 minutes away from there, too small to be shown on the map.
That reminds me of a routine by the excellent British comic Sanjeev Bhaskar, who is of Indian lineage. He describes a conversation he often finds himself in, something like this:
White guy: “So, where are you from?”
Sanjeev: “London.”
White guy: “No, I mean where are you from originally?”
Sanjeev: “Well, I was actually born in Essex.”
White guy: “No … where were your parents from?”
Sanjeev: “Ahhhh … I see what you mean now. Sorry. Yeah, my parents - they’re from Birmingham.”
As for me, the OP’s question’s easy to answer. I was born in 1960, in a bedroom of a suburban house a couple of miles across the city from here. I spent my entire childhood and youth living there, and both my parents still live in that house, which they bought in 1955. I spent much of my childhood living in the bedroom where I was born.
At least in UK urban communities these days, that’s almost unheard-of, and there is no special reason, other than my parents never really wanted to live anywhere else.
My interpretation of the question is ‘In what town were you born?’ I doubt that anyone really cares whether is was at home or a hospital. Oh, it might be of interest if you were born on the sidewalk or in the back seat of a car on the way to a hospital.
My answer is usually just Wisconsin. Sometimes it’s Webster, WI.