.rooster
Is .rooster a real TLD? Who’s applying to run it?
Nobody is chasing .rooster, as of 7 October 2026. One applicant claimed it and is out. We keep the entry on the record either way.
- Journey To The West
A fun word for mascots and zodiac-themed sites, but few serious projects would make .rooster their main address.
brands and creators with rooster mascots or names (food, farm, craft-beverage, gaming), plus zodiac-themed merchandise and event sites, mostly as a novelty or secondary address
In Journey To The West's published portfolio of 323 strings submitted in the ICANN 2026 round. Their catalog line: “The bird that wakes the world each day.”
The 2012 applications making the most similar bet. Chosen by AI from every string in that round, without being told what happened to any of them.
Same bet: a short, vivid single-animal common noun with no self-identifying industry behind it, so it lives or dies on evocative brandability (and on one deep-pocketed owner wanting the word) rather than on a ready-made registrant base.
Also an animal common noun, but it bets on a real, self-identifying constituency (breeders, riders, equine trade) that would put its primary identity on the string — the fowl/farm base behind rooster is far thinner, so it is the same shape of bet at a much weaker demand density.
The other pure animal-noun namespace play: a category word whose thesis is that owners and pet businesses adopt it as identity, which is what rooster would have to replicate without dog's mass consumer affinity.
What a .rooster domain is
.rooster is not a TLD yet. It is a string on our record of the ICANN 2026 new gTLD round, filed under Culture. Nobody is chasing .rooster today. The applicants that claimed it are out.
Is the .rooster domain extension real yet?
.rooster is not yet a domain extension you can register: nothing resolves under it, and no registrar sells names in it. Nobody has applied for it on the public record; the ICANN 2026 new gTLD round is the process that would decide whether it becomes one.
When can you buy a .rooster domain?
You can’t yet. A .rooster name can only be registered once the string is delegated (added to the DNS root) and its registry opens. Last round's closest parallel to .rooster was .duck, delegated on 21 July 2016.
Is .rooster a real TLD?
Not yet. .rooster is not in the DNS root, so nothing resolves under it. It’s here because an applicant claimed .rooster and is no longer in it. We keep the entry, and every entry on this page links to its source.
- Journey To The West · now abandonedICANN
- Journey To The West · first recordedJourney To The West Corporation
“.rooster · Zodiac & Creatures · “The bird that wakes the world each day.””Journey To The West Corporation
- I place .rooster in the 10-29 vanity/narrow band. By analogy, existing single-animal TLDs such as .horse and .fish have seen only shallow hobbyist and novelty uptake rather than sustained primary-identity use, and .rooster lacks even their broader lifestyle hooks (equestrian industry, fishing). It is not in the 30-49 band because there is no plausible volume or price-driven registration engine over the next 5 years — demand is occasional mascot branding and Chinese-zodiac novelty that spikes around Rooster years and fades (analogy to event-driven zodiac merchandising). It is above the 1-9 band because rooster-named businesses and zodiac culture give it some memorable, real if thin, use. The applicant is a Beijing-based portfolio applicant with 323 submitted strings listing it under 'Zodiac & Creatures', consistent with a catalog play rather than a community anchor. Main market uncertainty: whether Chinese-market zodiac branding produces recurring commercial registrations around each Rooster year or none at all.