A dotted name showing the “path” from a module’s global scope to a class, function or method defined in that module, as defined in PEP 3155. For top-level functions and classes, the qualified name is the same as the object’s name:

>>> class C:
...     class D:
...         def meth(self):
...             pass
...
>>> C.__qualname__
'C'
>>> C.D.__qualname__
'C.D'
>>> C.D.meth.__qualname__
'C.D.meth'

When used to refer to modules, the fully qualified name means the entire dotted path to the module, including any parent packages, e.g. email.mime.text:

>>> import email.mime.text
>>> email.mime.text.__name__
'email.mime.text'