Table of Contents

Internationalized Domain Names

General

IDN means Internationalized Domain Name. IDNs are domain names that include local language characters, such as bébé.fr.

IDN policies by registry

Gandi already has 50 extensions that support IDNs.

IDNs can be registered at Gandi for the following extensions (click for more info):

How IDNs work

Technically, the “special” characters are encoded using a conversion table. This is why an IDN domain name will begin with the four characters xn––. For example: bébé.eu becomes xn-–bb-bjab.eu. (This is also why you can't otherwise register domain names with hyphens in the third and fourth position.)

The IDN System is specified by RFC standards 3490, 3491 and 3492.

Note that while email addresses that use an IDN domain name will work with most modern webmails and email programs (if it does not work with yours, please update your email program to the latest version), you must use the xn–– version of your domain name when logging into Gandi's webmail or when configuring your email program.

See also