Register your own global
i-name (individual or business) today.

Although i-names have some similarity to domain names, they also have significant differences. This page explains the rules of i-name formats.

= and @

There are two i-name registries: one for people and one for businesses and organizations. Personal i-names begin with "="; business i-names begin with "@".

=personal.name
@organization.name

Except the starting symbol, all other formatting rules are the same.

Letters, Digits, Dots, and Dashes

An i-name may contain any combination of letters and digits, however the only punctuation characters allowed are dots and dashes, and they must not be used consecutively, or at the start or end of an i-name.

Allowed	Not Allowed
=example.name	=example.name.
=example-name	=example-name-
@example.company-name	@example..company--name
@example-org-name	@example-.org-name
@exampleorgname	@-exampleorgname

Although not required, XDI.org recommends the use of dots to separate names that would typically be separated by spaces. This is the same convention often used with email addresses, i.e., first.last@example.com

Recommended	Not Recommended
=example.name	=examplename
@example.company.name	@examplecompanyname

Also note that the use of dots makes it easy to create simple, memorable, globally-unique names even if the exact name you would like has already been registered.

=example.name
=example.q.name
=example.middle.name
=example.name.jakarta
=example.name.alaska
=example.name.koala

International Characters

Besides Latin characters, an i-name may contain characters from any international character script supported by the XDI.org Global Registry Service. The initial supported scripts include:

Script	Example
Han (Simplified Chinese)	=名字.例子
Han (Japanese)	@名前.例
Hangul (Korean)	@보기.이름

To prevent "phishing" (registration of lookalike i-names in different languages), the XDI.org Global Registry Service automatically maps lookalike characters. See the XDI.org GRS language tables page for more information.

See our language tables for exact character sets supported.

Capitalization

i-names are "case-insensitive," i.e., it is the same i-name regardless of whether it is spelled with uppercase or lowercase letters. For example, "=example.name" and "=Example.Name" are equivalent. This is true for both Latin letters and those of other character scripts that support case.

Community i-names (*names)

Individuals and businesses who register global =names and @names can in turn assign lower-level i-names to others. These are called community i-names, because they are unique within the community of digital addresses created by the top-level name.

The community i-name character is "*", so these are often called "*names". Following are examples.

=example.name*son
=example.name*daughter
@example.company.name*division
@example.company.name*division*sub-division

Note that the ability to assign community i-names is a feature available from your i-broker. Ask your i-broker for more information.