The NS, or Name Server records of a domain name, reveal which servers manage the Domain Name System (DNS) records for it. Setting the name servers of a given host company for your domain address is the simplest way to forward it to their system and all its sub-records are going to be taken care of on their end. This includes A (the IP address of the server/website), MX (mail server), TXT (free text), SRV (services), CNAME (forwarding), and so on, if you wish to edit some of these records, you will be able to do it using their system. To put it differently, the NS records of a domain address point out the DNS servers that are authoritative for it, so when you attempt to open a web address, the DNS servers are contacted to retrieve the DNS records of the Internet domain you are trying to reach. In this way the web site you'll see will be retrieved from the correct location. The name servers typically have a prefix “ns” or “dns” and every single domain name has at least two NS records. There is absolutely no functional difference between the two prefixes, so what kind a hosting provider will use depends entirely on their preference.