Welcome and thanks for some interesting questions. Lets see if I can give you some satisfactory answers...
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Is it possible for a character to have been born in Freeport? Is there any specific race or class that could not have been born in Freeport?
Almost any 'evil' character can come from Freeport and once through the opening tutorial will call Freeport their home.
Restrictions include any 'goody' class or race, so wood elves cannot come from there, nor can a dwarf, halfling, high elf, fae or froglok. Also restricted from Freeport are the newer evil races who live in newer starting cities (like Neriak & Gorowin). These include sarnak & arasai.
class wise, no 'good only' class can come from Freeport so monk, pally, ranger, swashy, templar, mystic, conjy and illy are all unavailable to an evil player. Please note that each of these good only classes has an obverse class who is evil only and
can start in Freeport so you still get to choose from half the available classes in the game.
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Is there an alignment that seems to be more popular with active roleplayers?
Not really. There are two RP servers - each named after the leader of one of the two original starting cities. Since you intend to go with Freeport, you might want to choose the Lucan DLere server (instead of Antonia Bayle) since he is the head honcho in Freeport.
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I understand the importance of a player having a decent grip on lore before RPing, but how much of the lore would a young character know?
A young character could be expected to know any amount of lore and history depending on what they were taught as children. The bulk of this education would have come from family , teachers or even the state so an argument could be made for the character being very knowledgable or absolutely clueless!
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Exactly how are good and evil defined in this game? IRL, I don't believe I've ever met anyone who was entirely one or the other.
Good and evil in EQ2 are mostly a function of geography and are really only seen as separated in the early stages (or levels) of the game. By the time your characters are really "out there in the world" (say tier 3 and above) there is no adventure zones you are restricted from going to based on your alignment. Furthermore, unless you play on a PvP server, you'll be able to group and raid with characters of different alignments as soon as you can survive those zones.
One more thing for you to consider as a role player... there is a game mechanic in place by which you can "betray" your starting city. So for example, you could create an evil wood elf ranger who flees Qeynos to live in Freeport. When you have finished betraying you will no longer be a ranger (you'll be an assassin) but you'll be an evil wood elf. The back story is up to you.
...food for thought