Registration of Domain Names in Greek Characters

The registration of domain names in Greek characters (IDN) is possible under .gr since the 4th of July, 2005, 07.00 UTC time and the registration of domain names under .ελ is possible since the 10th of July, 2018 (08.00 UTC) time. A list of the Greek characters available for registration can be found here.

The domain names consisting of Greek characters shall be assigned in the lower case form declared by the registrant in its registration declaration (i.e. with any marks of accentuation, dieresis, punctuation, word-final position sigma (ς) and/or lower case sigma (σ), etc.).

The lower case unpunctuated form of the domain name consisting of lower case Greek characters with punctuation shall be assigned to the registrant without additional charge. In the event that the domain name includes the word-final position sigma (ς) the following shall be assigned to the holder without additional charge:

  • the lower case unpunctuated form of the name with word-final position sigma (ς), wherever this existed in the initial registration declaration
  • the lower case unpunctuated form of the name with lower case sigma (σ), wherever a word-final position sigma existed in the initial registration declaration

Other forms of the same domain name, which are reserved for the registrant of the domain name and can be activated by submitting an activation declaration (The activation cost is determined by on the registrar) are:

  • domain names resulting from a combination of the lower case unpunctuated form with punctuation marks placed at points other than those of the lower case form declared by the registrant in his/her initial registration declaration and/or
  • domain names resulting by replacing the Greek characters «σ» with «ς» and vice versa and any combination of these, if they exist in the initial registration declaration (e.g. for the domain name σωτήρης.gr the reserved forms are ςωτηρης.gr, ςωτήρησ.gr etc.)
  • homographs of the domain name

The activated reserved forms assigned to the registrant either with or without additional charge are parts of the domain name "Bundle".

Homograph Names

Homograph names are those names that are VISUALLY identical in their lower or upper case, punctuated or unpunctuated form although are written in different characters (e.g. mepa.gr and μέρα.gr whose capital form (ΜΕΡΑ) is visually the same). We should point out to those interested to the fact that audibly similar or visual dissimilar names are not covered by the above definition (for example, maria.gr has no homograph because the character r has no visually similar character in the Greek alphabet while one homograph of the domain name μαρια.gr is the latin mapia.gr - which in capital case becomes ΜΑΡΙΑ.gr). A table of the homograph characters can be found here.

Special cases of homographs

Due to the visual matching of the international characters "h" and "n" and the fact that both of these characters are homographs to the Greek character "η", the following table results:

Greek character Latin character
η Η n N
η Η h H
ν Ν v V

The result is a group of characters (h, n, v, η, ν) in which any character can be replaced by any of the others. For example homograph names for the domain name huv.gr are hun.gr, huh.gr and any combination of the above characters.

The same applies in the case of the group of characters u, y, υ.

Greek character Latin character
υ Υ u U
υ Υ y Y

In case there are two (or more) homograph names assigned to different registrants (registered before the starting date of the IDN registrations, July the 4th, 2005), the right to activate a homograph name of the domain name is not given to any of the registrants. If for any reason only one of the domain names remains registered, the registrant of this domain name has the right to activate any of the homograph names.

Bundle

Bundled names are considered to be the group of a registered domain name and it’s activated reserved forms. The activated reserved forms are renewed automatically with the renewal of the registered domain name regardless of the activation date. For each one of the activated forms a renewal fee is charged. If during the application/declaration submission the lower case unpunctuated form of the name and/or the lower case unpunctuated form of the name with [σ] in the place of [ς] have been activated without charge, then for this forms the renewal is free of charge.

In case the registrant does not wish to renew one of the activated reserved forms, they have to deactivate the reserved form before renewing. (By renewing an expired domain name in the 15 days period following its expiration, all the activated reserved forms of the name are renewed. A reserved form which had been activated prior to the domain name expiration cannot be deactivated.) Also, in case of registrant change or registrant name change, the Bundle is updated as one name (only one registrant for the bundle) but charged according to the number of the activated reserved forms within the bundle.

DNS of IDNs with Greek Characters

Domain names in Greek characters are inserted in the .gr or .ελ zone file on their non-punctuated form in Punycode (e.g. ονομα.gr -> xn--mxavchb.gr, ονομα.ελ -> xn--mxavchb.xn--qxam). The punctuated form is associated with the non-punctuated with the use of DNAME. A tool to convert the domain from Greek characters to Punycode is available here.

An activated reserved form of a domain name can be part of the .gr or .ελ zone file in one of the following two ways:

  • As a DNAME: The activated name is inserted in the zone file as a DNAME of the non-punctuated form of the initial domain name. In this case the activated name is operational immediately if the non-punctuated form is operational.
  • As a normal domain name: The activated name is inserted in the zone file as a usual domain name but with the same nameservers with the initial domain name. For the activated name to be operational, a zone file for this specific domain name in Punycode must be set up in the nameservers.

Homograph names in latin characters are also inserted in the .gr or .ελ zone file in one of the ways described above.

For more info on the domain names in Greek characters please contact your registrar, the Registry through the e-mail addresses hmaster-info@ics.forth.gr) or EETT , e-mail: info@eett.gr, tel. +30 210-6151000).