# Name processing

When interacting with Nad Name Service smart-contracts directly, note that names are not stored in their human readable format. We must process the name before it can be used by a smart-contract by execute below steps **in order**:

* Name normalization
* Name hash

### Name normalization

Normalization is the process of standardizing a name before passing it through the Namehash algorithm. It's crucial to normalize all input consistently, as even a small variation, such as a difference between uppercase and lowercase letters, can result in a completely different namehash.

For example,  `Salmo.Nad` normalizes to `salmo.nad`. This ensures that no matter how the user types in the name, the correct node is used.

Using `viem:`

{% code lineNumbers="true" %}

```typescript
import { normalize } from 'viem/ens'

const normalizedName = normalize('Salmo.Nad') 
// => salmo.nad
```

{% endcode %}

Using `ethersjs(v6):`

<pre class="language-typescript" data-line-numbers><code class="lang-typescript">import { ensNormalize, namehash } from "ethers/hash";

<strong>const normalizedName = ensNormalize('Salmo.Nad')
</strong><strong>// => salmo.nad
</strong></code></pre>

### Namehash

{% hint style="info" %}
You must normalize names before creating a namehash.
{% endhint %}

In NNS core smart-contracts, names are stored as a hash instead of the raw string for optimization purpose. The hashed value is called a `node` , which is a hex-encoded 32-byte value that is derived from the name using the `namehash` algorithm from ENS [ENSIP-1](https://docs.ens.domains/ensip/1).

Using `viem:`

```typescript
import { namehash, normalize } from "viem/ens";

const normalizedName = normalize('salmo.nad');
const node = namehash(normalizedName);
```

Using `ethersjs(v6):`

```typescript
import { ensNormalize, namehash } from "ethers/hash";

const normalizedName = ensNormalize('salmo.nad')
const node = namehash(normalizedName)
```


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