meaning of だけど in this context

Question

recently I started watching samurai champloo & someone asked mugen for his name.

he answered: ムゲンだけど

I was wondering what the role of だけど in this context was. I thought maybe it's the same as adding "..." after mugen in English.

Answer 1

Your intuition is pretty accurate. It's expressing a feeling of "...what does that have to do with anything?" or "why are you asking?". Mugen doesn't understand why he's being asked his name.

A similar pattern would be:

A:「何才ですか？」

B:「30才だけど...」

A: How old are you?

B: I'm 30... (what does that have to do with anything?)

Or:

A:「だれの車？」

B:「俺のだけど...」

A: Whose car is this?

B: It's mine... (why are you asking?)