.san
Is .san a real TLD? Who’s applying to run it?
Nobody has applied for .san in its own right, as of 7 October 2026. Gabia, Inc. named .san as the replacement string of its .han application.
A short string with meanings in Korean, Japanese and Spanish, but no single group needs it as a primary web identity.
individuals and small studios in Japan or Korea wanting a playful personal-name address (name.san), with a thin second line of storage-networking and Spanish-language "San" place or saint names
No applications recorded for this TLD yet.
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 as a grammar-particle string: a three-letter non-English word with no category meaning of its own, whose only value is completing a phrase to the left of the dot (name.soy / name.san), so it sells identity constructions to individuals rather than a market vertical, and carries the same risk that the word is read as something unrelated (the bean; a storage acronym or a Spanish saint-prefix).
Same bet as a short Japanese-language particle rendered in Latin script and offered as an open namespace: it only works if a Japanese-speaking audience recognizes the word as theirs and registers on cultural affinity, while everyone else sees three arbitrary letters.
Same post-nominal honorific structure — a courtesy title placed after a person's name so the holder's primary identity sits in the second level — but esq bets on one gated profession's credential rather than on an open form of address anyone can claim.
What a .san domain is
.san is not a TLD yet. It is a string on our record of the ICANN 2026 new gTLD round, filed under Culture. Nobody has applied for .san in its own right. It is named on ICANN’s list as part of an application for another string.
Is the .san domain extension real yet?
.san 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 .san domain?
You can’t yet. ICANN publishes every applied-for string on Reveal Day, 7 October 2026 at 18:00 UTC. A .san name can only be registered after that, once the string is delegated and its registry opens. Last round's closest parallel to .san was .soy, delegated on 19 April 2014.
Is .san a real TLD?
Not yet. .san is not in the DNS root, so nothing resolves under it. It’s here because ICANN’s list names .san as part of an application for another string. Every entry on this page links to its source.
- Gabia, Inc. · first recordedICANN
“GI2679T-T39798 · Gabia, Inc. · replacement string of .han”ICANN
- Band chosen: 10-29 (vanity/narrow), near its top. The string carries several unrelated meanings: the Japanese honorific suffix (tanaka.san reads naturally as a personal address), the Korean word for mountain, the Spanish prefix for saints and place names (which reads backwards as a suffix and so fits poorly), and the storage-area-network acronym. Each hook is memorable but none describes a buyer group that would adopt the TLD as its primary identity at volume, so it does not reach the 30-49 band, where registrations happen at volume or on price with a weak but present brand signal. It sits above the 1-9 band because a three-letter, pronounceable string with a genuine personal-name hook in Japanese has a realistic vanity and short-domain market, by analogy (flagged as analogy) with suffix-style vanity TLDs such as .moe, .ninja and .wtf, which found sustained but shallow demand without becoming serious primary identities. The single application on the record is from Gabia, Inc., filed as a replacement string for .han; that is stated neutrally and suggests the operator's distribution strength may be strongest in the Korean registrar channel, which would favour a Korean-language positioning (mountain, hiking, outdoor) over the Japanese honorific reading. Main market uncertainty: which of the string's meanings the registry actually markets, and whether it secures registrar distribution in that language market; a focused Japanese personal-name push with strong local registrar channels could lift it into the low 30s, while a generic unpositioned launch would leave it as a short-string novelty. Aftermarket value is expected to be thin outside a few short or dictionary-word second levels.