Losing Your firstname.lastname.name Address? What the .name Shutdown Means and How to Keep Your Email

Verisign, the registry that runs .name, is shutting down two legacy services: third-level names such as john.smith.name, and the registry’s own email addresses such as john@smith.name. ICANN approved both requests on 7 May 2026, and existing registrations will be deleted once Verisign’s notice to registrars (a minimum of 90 days) runs out. No ICANN or Verisign document gives the date, but registrants report 15 February 2027. If you rely on one of these addresses, move your email to a domain you control, for example your own second-level .name domain such as johnsmith.name, before then.

Checked on 24 October 2026 against ICANN’s two approval letters to Verisign, Verisign’s own requests, and ICANN’s reconsideration records. The appeals are still open and the date may change: every fact below carries its source.

What is being shut down: two services, not one

Most coverage talks about deleted domains, but on 15 April 2026 Verisign filed two separate requests under ICANN’s Registry Services Evaluation Policy (RSEP). Both services date back to the original 2001 .name contract between ICANN and Global Name Registry, the first operator of the extension.

	Third-level names	Registry email addresses
Looks like	john.smith.name	john@smith.name
Verisign request	RSEP 2026013	RSEP 2026014
What ends	No new registrations; existing ones “will be deleted”	No new addresses; existing addresses deleted and forwarding stops
How many	About 22,000 registrations, “the majority” not in use (Verisign’s figure)	Not published
Who controls smith.name	Verisign, as a shared name	Verisign, as a shared name
What happens to smith.name afterwards	Not stated in the request	Blocked from re-registration for one year after the shutdown

Sources: Verisign’s RSEP requests of 15 April 2026 (published by ICANN as attachments to Reconsideration Request 26-2) and ICANN’s letters of 28 July 2026 approving the third-level shutdown and the email shutdown.

Verisign gave ICANN two reasons: “declining usage and limited registrar support,” and that ending the services “will increase efficiency for the operation of the .name TLD.” It also told ICANN it had consulted the registrars that manage most of the affected users and that none raised security, stability or competition concerns. Ordinary second-level .name domains, such as johnsmith.name, are not affected.

Timeline: what is confirmed and what is not

Date	Event	Status	Source
15 Apr 2026	Verisign files RSEP 2026013 (third level) and 2026014 (email)	Confirmed	Verisign’s requests
7 May 2026	ICANN approves both; posted on 8 May	Confirmed	ICANN letters, 28 Jul 2026
2 Jun 2026	First appeal (Reconsideration Request 26-2)	Confirmed	ICANN reconsideration page
28 Jul 2026	ICANN tells Verisign it is “free to discontinue” both services	Confirmed	ICANN letters
24 Aug 2026	ICANN Board committee (BAMC) recommends denying request 26-2	Confirmed	BAMC recommendation
14 Oct 2026	Six appeals consolidated for a joint decision	Confirmed	ICANN notice of consolidation
At least 90 days before shutdown	Verisign notifies registrars; reminder at least 30 days before	Required by the approval	ICANN letters
15 Feb 2027	Deletion of third-level names and registry email addresses	Reported, not official	Registrants’ filings (Request 26-13) and CircleID, 23 Oct 2026
One year after shutdown	End of the block on shared names tied to deleted email addresses	Stated by Verisign, date depends on the shutdown	RSEP 2026014

ICANN’s letters add a detail that matters if you have heard nothing yet: “With regard to communications with registrants, registrars manage the registrar-registrant relationship(s).” Verisign notifies registrars; whether and when you are told depends on the company you pay. One registrant told ICANN they learned of the February 2027 date from automated warnings their registrar sent between August and October 2026.

Is your address affected? How to check

1. Your address has two dots before “name” (john.smith.name, or a website at that address): it is a third-level name and it is covered by the shutdown.
2. Your email is john@smith.name and you never registered smith.name yourself: it is a registry email address and the forwarding behind it will stop.
3. You registered johnsmith.name directly and use it for email or a website: you hold a second-level domain. It is not part of either shutdown.

If you are unsure which case is yours, look at the mail servers (MX records) of the part after the @ sign. Any DNS lookup tool shows them. We checked two common surnames on 24 October 2026: smith.name and lee.name both point their mail to mx01 to mx04.nic.name, the mail servers the registry runs for this service, have no nameservers of their own, and return no registrant in Verisign’s registration data service (RDAP). That is what a shared surname managed by the registry looks like. If your address depends on a name like that, it depends on the service that is closing.

Third level, registry email or your own .name: the difference

	Third-level name	Registry email address	Your own second-level .name
Example	john.smith.name	john@smith.name	johnsmith.name, and any address @johnsmith.name
Who controls the part after the dot or @	Verisign (smith.name is shared)	Verisign (smith.name is shared)	You
Status after the shutdown	Deleted	Deleted, forwarding stops	Unchanged
Email	Through the registry’s forwarding, if it was bundled	Forwarding by the registry only	Any provider you choose: forwarding, Google Workspace, Microsoft 365
Can you move it to another registrar?	Limited: some registrars have dropped it	Not a domain of its own	Yes, like any domain
Can someone else get it later?	Not stated	smith.name is blocked for one year, then not stated	Only if you let it expire

The risk after deletion: the shared surname

The technical part of Verisign’s email request explains how the service works. When someone takes an address such as firstname@lastname.name, Verisign adds an MX record to lastname.name that sends the mail to a server Verisign operates. At the shutdown, “SLD E-mail Addresses will be deleted and the MX records associated with the second-level domain name … will be removed,” and Verisign “will prevent re-registration of the second-level domain names managed by Verisign and associated with the deleted SLD E-mail Addresses for one year from the effective date of discontinuation.”

The request does not say what happens after that year, and the third-level request says nothing about the shared names above third-level domains. That gap is the core of the latest appeal. Request 26-13, filed by a registrant on 21 October 2026, argues that once a shared name such as smith.name can be registered by anyone, the new owner could set up mail for it and receive password-reset emails still addressed to the old accounts. That is the requester’s argument, not a finding by ICANN, but it explains the practical advice: change the email on your accounts, not just your forwarding.

The appeals: can the decision still change?

Possibly, but nothing has changed so far. ICANN’s reconsideration page lists at least eight requests about the .name decisions, filed between June and October 2026 (26-2, 26-5, 26-6, 26-7, 26-9, 26-10, 26-12 and 26-13). On 14 October ICANN consolidated six of them and said they “will all be jointly considered in due course, first by the Board Accountability Mechanisms Committee (BAMC) and then the Board,” and that later requests on the same action would join them.

The only formal assessment so far points the other way. On 24 August 2026 the BAMC recommended denying request 26-2, concluding that “the approvals of RSEP 2026013 and RSEP 2026014 were appropriate and do not warrant reconsideration.” ICANN’s Ombuds reached the same view. As of 24 October 2026 the Board has published no decision on any of the requests.

What registrants are asking for ranges from keeping existing registrations until they expire (“grandfathering”) to permanently blocking the shared surnames so nobody can claim them. One filing from 29 September says a large registrar platform, OpenSRS (Tucows), stopped renewing third-level .name names and registry email forwarding on 19 June 2026, and that it did not know which registrars still accepted them. If your renewal has already been refused, that is consistent with what other registrants report.

How to keep your email: a migration checklist

Do not plan around the appeals. Even if the Board changes something, a working address on a domain you own is the safer place to be.

1. Register a second-level domain of your own. The closest match is your name as a .name domain (johnsmith.name, john-smith.name). Anyone, anywhere, can register one, and it is usually live within minutes. A .com or a country domain works the same way; you can check several extensions at once.
2. Set up email on it before you change anything else. The simplest option is forwarding to the inbox you already read. With Register.Domains, every domain includes free email forwarding, up to five addresses, as long as it uses our nameservers. For a full mailbox, see how to get an email address with your own domain.
3. Make a list of where the old address is used. Search your inbox for messages sent to it: banks, tax and government portals, your mobile carrier, domain and hosting accounts, app stores, and the recovery address of your main email account.
4. Change the account email, not just the forwarding. Start with accounts that can reset other accounts (your main email provider, password manager, Apple, Google and Microsoft accounts), then money and identity, then everything else.
5. Remove the old address as a recovery option wherever it is listed as a backup email. This is the step that protects you if the shared name ever gets a new owner.
6. Tell your contacts and update public places: email signature, CV, professional profiles, business cards, PGP keys.
7. Ask your current registrar three questions in writing: the exact shutdown date it was given, whether it will refund the unused years you paid for, and whether it can still renew until then. None of the ICANN documents covers refunds.
8. Keep the old address working as long as it lasts and watch which senders still use it. Each one is an account you missed.

If you want a professional-looking address on the new domain, these professional email address ideas show the formats that work best.

Quick answers

Will my firstname.lastname.name address keep working until the shutdown?

The registry has said existing names will be deleted at the end of the notice period, not before. In practice it depends on renewals: a registrant’s filing says names whose renewal was refused have already dropped out of the .name zone after they expired.

Can I keep the same address?

No. Both requests delete the existing third-level names and registry email addresses. The closest you can get is a second-level domain made of your name, such as johnsmith.name, which you own directly.

Is .name itself going away?

No. The shutdown covers only the two legacy services. Second-level .name registrations continue, and ICANN notes that Verisign and ICANN are negotiating the renewal of the .name Registry Agreement.

Will I get a refund for years already paid?

The ICANN documents do not say. Refunds depend on your registrar, which is why it is worth asking in writing now.

Secure your name on a domain you own

A third-level name or a registry email address was always borrowed from a shared name controlled by someone else. A second-level domain is yours for as long as you renew it, and you decide where its email goes. Register your .name domain, add free email forwarding, and start moving your accounts before the deadline your registrar gives you.