Introduction

No, it’s certainly not the United States. Tuvalu, an often forgotten South Pacific nation, has the best name of any country. Why? First off, the name sounds great. Secondly, it provides 10% of the country’s revenue. 

Before we get into that, the name Tuvalu (/tuːˈvɑː.luː/) is an endonym meaning “eight standing together,” with eight being in reference to the number of main islands that were inhabited – (there are now nine). Also, the country is the fourth smallest in the world by land area (by American standards) and third smallest by population. It is about halfway between Australia and Hawaii.

A Domain Name Makes Up 10% of Tuvalu’s Revenue

Since the country is isolated in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, it is hard to get to; hence, their tourism industry is not very strong. Fishing is great for their economy, especially considering that they have a massive EEZ, however, 10% of their money comes from an unexpected source. 

The International Organization for Standardization established internationally defined country codes starting in 1974, shortening countries’ names for convenience – for instance, Russia is RU. The ‘nicknames’ came from countries’ full names, so some places with long full names got odd codes, for instance, Germany, which got DE.

When the World Wide Web was made, top-level domains became based off of the country codes. A top-level domain is the part of the domain name at the end, like .com or .org. Soon, top-level domains were given based on country codes. Instead of choosing random domains, they took the ISO’s codes.

Tuvalu had gotten .tv as their country code, so when websites wanted to name themselves conveniently, Tuvalu was able to sell off their domain name for huge profits. When video on the internet became popular, websites realized that .tv would be the perfect top-level domain for them. 

The country now gets over $3 million dollars USD from its domain name yearly. This makes up around 10% of the country’s revenue and has helped the country afford development and made their economy skyrocket. They were even able to join the UN in 2002, which they previously could not afford because of the joining fee.

The moral of the story? If you’re thinking of a name for your newly established country, choose something that can be shortened to a popular domain name. However, according to some reports, Tuvalu is unhappy with the percentage of revenue from the domain name that actually goes towards them. So for your own country, negotiate a better deal.