"People often refer to things in the real world by a common name or phrase@ e.g.@ a trade name@ company name@ or a book title. These names are sometimes easier for people to remember and type than URLs. Furthermore@ because of the limited syntax of URLs@ companies and individuals are finding that the ones that might be most reasonable for their resources are being used elsewhere and so are unavailable. For the purposes of this document@ a ""common name"" is a word or a phrase@ without imposed syntactic structure@ that may be associated with a resource. This effort is about the creation of a protocol for client applications to communicate with common name resolution services@ as exemplified in both the browser enhancement and search site paradigms. Although the protocol's primary function is resolution@ it is also intended to address issues of internationalization and localization. Name resolution services are not generic search services and thus do not need to provide complex Boolean query@ relevance ranking or similar capabilities. The protocol is a simple@ minimal interoperable core. Mechanisms for extension are provided@ so that additional capabilities can be added."