By Erwin Groen | 30 October 2026
Why do some of us find top level domain names so appealing?
Most people are perfectly happy owning a conventional domain name. They choose a name, put a familiar extension on the end and get on with building their website or business.
There's something different about having the name at the top level itself.
I've been thinking about why that’s important to me, it's more than having a shorter address.
More Than Just a Name
A traditional domain name gives you a place within somebody else's namespace. You can build a brand around it, but the extension is still part of your identity whenever you write or share the address.
A top level name turns that all around.
Instead of putting your identity before another organisation's extension, the name itself becomes the starting point. You can create names beneath it and decide how they fit together.
It's not the novelty of something different. It's the feeling of having room to build.
My Brand. My Dot. My Identity.
For me, owning the dot means my brand doesn't have to stop at the dot. It can extend right across it.
I like the idea of having my own brand represented without another company's name or brand appearing on the other side of the dot. The identity is mine, and mine alone.
That's a large part of the appeal of a top level name. I can create a consistent space around my own identity rather than fitting it into somebody else's branding.
Why should my brand stop at the dot?
The Freedom to Build
With a top level name, there's an opportunity to organise more than one website or service under a single identity.
A person might create spaces for family, projects or interests. A business might use different names for its services, products or teams. A community might build a naming structure around something its members recognise and share.
Not everyone wants to do any of that, others see value in holding them for the future.
For me, the interesting part is what a name makes possible once someone actually starts using it.
Ownership Has Its Limits
Of course, owning a top level name doesn't mean owning a word everywhere.
A Handshake name is part of the Handshake naming system. It doesn't automatically give the holder trademark rights, and it doesn't prevent the same string from being used in conventional DNS or another naming system.
There are practical limits too. Handshake names aren't resolved by every browser or network by default. People may need compatible resolvers or other tools to reach them.
The appeal of independence shouldn't come at the expense of understanding what we actually control.
Why Handshake Matters to Me
Handshake makes the possibility of holding a top level name accessible to individuals, not only large organisations able to fund an expensive application process.
It's a different approach to naming, one that invites people to experiment with identities and namespaces of their own.
There's still work to do around access, awareness and adoption. A name only becomes useful when people can find it, recognise it and do something meaningful with it.
But the opportunity to build around your own dot is already here.
Perhaps that's the real attraction for those of us drawn to top level names: not being able to say we own one, but deciding what we want that name to become.
Own the Name | Own The Rules | OwnTheDot