CapraDomains · rescue guide

The .name shutdown, and what it costs you

Two things are ending, not one. Third-level domains like firstname.lastname.name are being deleted — not expired, not transferred — whatever you have paid up front. And .name email forwarding is being switched off separately, which takes firstname@lastname.name addresses with it even if you never held a third-level domain.

What is actually happening

Verisign, which runs the .name registry, asked ICANN on 15 April 2026 for permission to stop offering third-level .name registrations — the something.something.name form that made .name unusual. ICANN approved it on 7 May 2026. Verisign gave its reason as declining usage and limited registrar support, and told ICANN there are approximately 22,000 such registrations.

The part that catches people is what happens to the ones already registered. In Verisign's own words in the filing: “no new third level domain names will be registered and existing third level domain names will be terminated”. There is no migration to a second-level name, no grandfathering, and paying years ahead does not help — registrants holding registrations paid into the 2040s are affected the same as everyone else.

There is a second filing, and it is the one about email. On the same day, Verisign asked to discontinue the .name email forwarding service and terminate second-level email addresses — the firstname@lastname.name form. That was approved too. So second-level .name domains survive as domains, but .name email is ending whether or not you hold a third-level name. If email is what you are trying to save, .name is not where to rebuild it.

One registrant has already asked ICANN to stop it. Reconsideration Request 26-2 has been through the Ombuds, who recommended it be denied, and the Board's Accountability Mechanisms Committee, which on 24 August 2026 also recommended denial. Both are recommendations: as far as we can see the Board itself has not yet ruled, so this is formally still open. We would not plan around it being granted — but it is not accurate to say it has already been refused, and you may see it reported that way.

February 2027 — but get your own date in writing

Registrars have been telling registrants the terminations land in February 2027, and that is well enough corroborated to plan around. It is worth knowing where it comes from, though: Verisign's filing sets a process, not a public calendar date — after approval it gives registrars at least 90 days' notice, with a reminder at least 30 days before the end, and existing third-level names are deleted when that notice expires. The date that governs your name is therefore the one in the mail from the registrar you bought it from. If you have not had that mail, ask them for it in writing today, and treat February 2027 as the working assumption until they answer.

The part that is not about the domain

Losing the website is an inconvenience. Losing the address is the actual problem, because an email address you have used for two decades is not just mail — it is the recovery identity on bank accounts, tax portals, domain registrars, app stores and everything else that offers to email you a reset link. When the domain stops resolving, every one of those resets stops arriving, and you find out one account at a time, usually at the worst moment.

There is a sharper edge to it. Your address sat under a shared second-level name — the lastname.name part was never yours. If that second-level name later becomes available and somebody else registers it, they control mail for the whole space beneath it. Any account still holding your old address as its recovery route would then be sending reset links to a stranger. Nobody has said this will happen, and it may not. It costs you nothing to make it irrelevant by moving your recovery addresses before the deletion, and a great deal if you are wrong.

What to do, in the order that matters

  1. Get your own date. Find the registrar email, or ask for it. Everything below is sized by how long you have.
  2. Register a replacement now, before you migrate anything. You want the new address working and receiving while the old one still is, so nothing lands in the gap. Use an ordinary domain you control — .com, .co.uk, anything. Do not rebuild on .name. The registry is switching its own email service off as well, and the second-level name matching your old address is registry-held and blocked from re-registration for a year after the shutdown, so you could not buy it even if you wanted to.
  3. Set up mail on the new domain, then send yourself a test. Any mail host will do — this is your own domain now, so nobody can switch it off from underneath you. Prove a message arrives from an outside account before you rely on it.
  4. Change your recovery addresses first, not your signature. Bank, tax portal, registrar, password manager, app stores, then everything else. Your password manager will list far more accounts than you remember; work from that list rather than from memory.
  5. Leave the old address forwarding for as long as it exists, and keep watching what arrives — every message to it is an account you have not moved yet.
  6. If you publish anything — papers, code, a CV, an ORCID record — the old address is out there permanently. Put a redirect or a note on the new site.

Want a hand doing it?

Tell us the .name address you are losing and we will reply with what a replacement costs and a migration checklist for your setup. Free to ask, and we will say so if you are better off doing it yourself.

We use this only to answer your request. No list, no spam.

Why we wrote this

We sell domains, so we gain if you register a replacement with us — but the checklist above works exactly as well at any registrar, and the account-recovery step is worth more than the domain is. We would rather be the ones who told you about it. If you want to see how our prices compare before deciding anything, every TLD guide lists fourteen registrars including the ones cheaper than us.

Sources: Verisign's two RSEP requests to ICANN, both dated 15 April 2026 and both approved 7 May 2026 — case 2026013 (third-level domain registrations) for the quoted terms and the 90-day notice mechanism, and case 2026014 (email forwarding and second-level email addresses, including the one-year block on re-registering the affected second-level names). The ~22,000 figure is what Verisign told ICANN in consultation, reported in ICANN's letter of 28 July 2026; a separate zone-file count circulating as 22,288 is a third party's. Reconsideration Request 26-2 status is from ICANN's published Ombuds evaluation and the BAMC recommendation of 24 August 2026. The February 2027 date comes from registrar notifications, not from either filing. Read on 2026-09-04 — if you are reading this much later, check the current position before acting.