What was Facebook's original domain name?

Facebook's original domain name was thefacebook.com. Mark Zuckerberg launched the service on February 4, 2004, as “TheFacebook,” initially making it available only to Harvard students.

The name referred to Harvard’s student directories, commonly called face books, which contained students’ photographs and basic information. The site quickly expanded to other universities, and its original domain preserved the article “the” in the brand name.

In 2005, the company purchased facebook.com for $200,000 and dropped “The” from its name. That change is why many people remember Facebook as having always used facebook.com. Facemash.com was a separate earlier website created by Zuckerberg in 2003, not Facebook’s original domain.