This was posted a couple of hours ago: <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6204867" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6204867</a>
Looks as if whois name.com is (surprisingly?) not only looking up 'name.com' but every domain that starts (not: ends) with 'name.com', such as 'name.com.someother.com'.
nothing to see here. its just showing that the query syntax for whois (in the wild) is broken.<p>Its showing name servers with hostnames that match the query. I first read about this on Slashdot in 1998 (okay, maybe I'm exaggerating that a bit - this has been making the rounds for years...)