Reglikedomain industry desk

Chicago man owns PopeFrancis.com

He’s owned it since 2010, but someone else quickly snapped up PopeFrancisI.com today.

Last month I suggested a number of possible names for the next pope and listed who owned the corresponding domain names.

One I didn’t have on the list was Pope Francis.

But that’s the name of the fresh pope just elected to lead the Roman Catholic Church.

So who owns the domain name?

Christopher Connors, a Chicago man, registered the domain name in 2010. It right now points to a GoDaddy.com parking page.

As for PopeFrancisI.com, the quick-on-the-keyboard award goes to Chris Dunaway in Tennessee. He registered the domain name earlier today. The .net, .org, .info, and so on were also registered today.

It’s likely we’ll see many variations of Pope Francis registered as domain names today.

Also on the wire

Other reporting from the domain desk.