Is there a radiotelephony alphabet standard for kanji, similar to NATO phonetic alphabet ("alfa, bravo, charlie")?


[NATO phonetic alphabet](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NATO_phonetic_alphabet)
is used for precise dictation of English letters:

  * "A" is pronounced as "Alfa"
  * "B" as "Bravo"
  * "C" as "Charlie", etc.

There are similar alphabets for other languages.

There are only 26 letters in English, and still it's worth to have an
unambiguous way to explain a spelling using voice only. In Japanese, there's
so much homophonic words containing kanji (especially in names), I'd imagine
there is a standard for dictating kanji, but I can't find it. There is the
[和文通話表](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_radiotelephony_alphabet) for
kana, numbers, and punctuation, but that's not what I'm looking for.

**Is there any similar method and/or standard (maybe historical, experimental,
or not originated in Japan) for vocal dictation of the kanji?** I assume it
may use a different method, e.g. explaining by components/radicals instead of
explaining the character as a whole.

I'm aware of a ["normal" way of doings
this](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/a/9572/9222), i.e. mentioning some
common words using particular kanji. But, to be honest, it sucks so much
balls... I can't imagine Japanese military forces or police doing that "SATO
as 'help' and 'light purple'" over the radio.

More than that, such list may be useful for learning kanji. The closest thing
I could find is a list of unique keywords from the famous
[RTK](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remembering_the_Kanji_and_Remembering_the_Hanzi),
which does a lot of trickery:

  * 暗 = "darkness"
  * 蒙 = "darken"
  * 闇 = "pitch dark"

This is confusing, but still not as confusing as trying to remember all the
darkness-related meanings from the dictionary definitions of those kanji.

Since chances are the answer is "No, there is no such thing. Deal with it!", I
have a somewhat related question:

**Is there a (standard) list of those common words to explain which kanji is
meant?** In other words, is there a list which _suggests_ the words which I
should use to explain the 佐藤 surname on the phone to my friend, who is not
Japanese and just studying kanji?




I doubt there is an official method or list of words used to explain kanji.

If there were an official method that were a lot more efficient, then regular
people would probably be using it and nobody would be having problems
explaining how things are spelled. Having an official list would mean one
would have to memorize thousands of words, one for each kanji- not to mention
that the whole thing would become useless if you ran into a kanji outside the
list.

The best method depends on the kanji, and knowing the best way will become
easier as you know more Japanese. If the kanji is part of a common but unique
compound, mention that. If it has a well-known 訓読み, which are usually unique,
that could easily narrow it down. Even explaining radicals and components
could work, at least as a last resort, especially for simpler kanji.
Generally, people will have a good sense of what will work and what won't, so
having an official list wouldn't really be needed, since people can come up
with one on the fly in their heads.




I doubt there is an official method or list of words used to explain kanji.

If there were an official method that were a lot more efficient, then regular
people would probably be using it and nobody would be having problems
explaining how things are spelled. Having an official list would mean one
would have to memorize thousands of words, one for each kanji- not to mention
that the whole thing would become useless if you ran into a kanji outside the
list.

The best method depends on the kanji, and knowing the best way will become
easier as you know more Japanese. If the kanji is part of a common but unique
compound, mention that. If it has a well-known 訓読み, which are usually unique,
that could easily narrow it down. Even explaining radicals and components
could work, at least as a last resort, especially for simpler kanji.
Generally, people will have a good sense of what will work and what won't, so
having an official list wouldn't really be needed, since people can come up
with one on the fly in their heads.

