IDN (Internationalized Domain Name) / Punycode
A domain using non-ASCII characters, encoded for DNS as ASCII Punycode beginning with xn--.
- glossary
An IDN (internationalized domain name) is a domain that uses non-ASCII characters — münchen.de, 中国.cn, or an emoji domain — so names can be written in scripts beyond basic Latin. Because the DNS itself only handles ASCII, an IDN is encoded into a compatible ASCII string called Punycode, which always begins with the xn-- prefix (so münchen becomes xn--mnchen-3ya). Registries and registrars support IDNs at the TLD level, though they carry a known risk: visually similar characters enable homograph lookalikes used in phishing.
Related keywords
- IDN
- internationalized domain name
- Punycode
- xn--
- Unicode domain
- homograph
Contributors
Namefi is a collective of engineers, designers, and operators who obsess over building tools that make managing your onchain domain names effortless.
Victor Zhou is a technology founder and standards editor focused on digital identity and trust. He founded Namefi, edits Ethereum Improvement Proposals, and previously led smart-contract architecture work at Google Labs.
His work sits at the intersection of naming, ownership, and the systems people use to establish identity online. That perspective makes him especially interested in the way names move between personal meaning, public recognition, and digital infrastructure.
For Namefi, Victor edits and writes about domains as durable digital identity: how names become ownable onchain assets, how tokenization changes custody and trust, and what naming can learn from the systems people use to establish identity online.