Apex domains cannot have CNAME records.
Question and response
Question
dig validname.com. NS
Answer
validname.com. 2 NS ns2.namebay.com.
validname.com. 2 NS ns1.namebay.com.
Authority
The response has no authority records.
Additional
ns1.namebay.com. 2 A 185.65.56.28
ns1.namebay.com. 2 A 185.65.56.185
ns2.namebay.com. 2 A 62.141.38.216
ns2.namebay.com. 2 A 91.134.185.34
ns1.namebay.com. 2 AAAA 2a01:c8:ff00:200:0:0:0:28
ns1.namebay.com. 2 AAAA 2a01:c8:ff00:201:0:0:0:185
ns2.namebay.com. 2 AAAA 2001:41d0:203:ddee:0:0:0:34
ns2.namebay.com. 2 AAAA 2001:4ba0:cafe:532:0:0:0:1
. 0 OPT ; payload 1232, xrcode 0, version 0, flags 0