Bulgaria was likely to apply for two different internationalised top domain names, Deputy Transport Minister Parvan Rousinov said at a media conference, where he presented the outcome of an online poll, held on the Transport Ministry's website.

On November 16 2009, Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) opened an application procedure for internationalized top domain names for countries in alphabets others than Latin.

The Latin country domain name for Bulgaria is .bg. Under the ICANN procedure, Bulgaria would have to specify in its application which abbreviation it wishes to use in its country domain name in Cyrillic.

The poll showed that .бг and .бгр were the two most popular internationalised top domain names for the country among Bulgarians, Rousinov said.

Of the two, .бг was the preferred name for a third of those who took part in the poll, according to Bulgarian broadcaster IDG.bg, despite the fact that the name was unlikely to be accepted by ICANN because of its visual resemblance to the country domain name in Latin for Brasil (.br).

Runner up, .бгр, was voted for by around a third of participants in the poll, IDG.bg said.

The outcome of the polls could lead to Bulgaria applying with both versions, just in case the .бг name is rejected by ICANN, Rousinov said.

The poll was part of a larger process to reach public consensus on the internationalised domain name for the country in Cyrillic, which included also a round-table with companies and organisations that had expressed an interest in the process, IDG.bg said.