# What is a Name Service? 

By [Amy Penn](https://paragraph.com/@amy-penn) · 2022-12-05

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Name Services were originally built as a way for humans and machines to communicate over a network. Instead of using an IP address (e.g. 127.0.0.1), users could refer to other users on a network with a simple name (e.g. localhost).

The first Name Services were centralized and used for a small number of individuals. In fact, they were so centralized they basically lived as a single file on a personal computer. But as the Internet grew, a new system was built in the 1980s: The **Domain Name System** (DNS). DNS still lives on today and is what you know as .com, or more recently domains such as .xyz. These technologies require a single group in charge of what names are allowed and what they represent.

Blockchain technology disrupted these systems by allowing Name Services to distribute control and privacy to the community. Being permission-less, these communities are being built by technologists and early adopters with a passion for decentralization.

One of the earliest forks of Bitcoin (aka Altcoin) was actually a Name Service known as **Namecoin** which had a goal of decentralized control of DNS. However Namecoin was plagued with name squatting and speculation, making the blockchain almost unusable as a Name Service. More recently **Ethereum Name Service** and **Unstoppable Domains** have been successful in building a decentralized Name Service, however have had a different focus than what is being built here at SuiNS.

[https://discord.com/invite/snsdomains](https://discord.com/invite/snsdomains)

[https://sns.domains/](https://sns.domains/)

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*Originally published on [Amy Penn](https://paragraph.com/@amy-penn/what-is-a-name-service)*