tl;dr⌗

I wanted a domain for stuff, gnur.nl was available.

Why gnur?⌗

About 14 years ago, I really started getting into self-hosting stuff. But without a domain it was getting harder to reach stuff from the outside.

I wanted something easy to type, remember and pronounce (in Dutch, I kind of forgot about the rest of the world..). After testing lots of domains I settled on gnur.nl
Soon thereafter I started using it as my online nickname as well. I liked the sound of it and people often link it to GNU Linux. Which it has no real connection with but since I work a lot with linux and opensource I don’t mind the similarity.

I’ve sometimes joked gnur is a recursive acronym like GNU:

gnur: gnur’s not unix, really

pronounciation⌗

For Dutch speakers, gnur is actually quite easy to pronounce. For English speakers the most important part is that the first g is not silent as in gnome, but like the j in the spanish Juan. Coupled with pronouncing the u as in hurd, you get gnur ;).