Lets say you have a somewhat uncommon family name, using an uncommon kanji. Now if you talking to someone on the phone and they need to write your name down and they don’t know how, how to you explain to them how to write your name.
Would it make you (if you are a Japanese person) look “dumb” when you write a name with hiragana because you do not know how to spell it, or is it something that would be acceptable to do in a situation that is not very formal.
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On the phone they’ll tell you the meaning of the kanji to use for their name.
I think there’s a bunch of different ways, but for example if there are multiple ways to write a name, like 裕子 祐子 優子 (all pronounced Yuuko), you could differentiate it over the phone by going 裕福のゆう (ie saying a common word that has the kanji you want). Most unusual last names are still made up of relatively common characters, so you could explain each one in this way. Even one like 黛 (Mayuzumi, a rare last name) you could even explain like “上はダイ、下はクロ” something like that.
But it’s also fine to just write people’s names in Katakana when you don’t know how they’re supposed to be written. I do it all the time when writing messages to people I only addressed verbally when we met, so like “セツコさん、今日ありがとうございました。” of course there are some ways to write “Setsuko” in kanji, but I don’t know which one she uses, so in that case I can write it in Katakana. You shouldn’t use hiragana, as unless the person writes it in hiragana it’s actually “wrong”. But it’s unlikely to be written in katakana so then the katakana can be a stand in.
related follow up question, what if your name is 髙橋? Most people will assume it’s 高橋 upon hearing タカハシ, how do you explain to use 髙 instead of 高?
You can tell them what word your name comes from, for example 「穏やかの穏」or tell them the type of reading. My husband has an uncommon kanji for his first name so he always tells people 「人偏の右」so they know which one to write. Honestly, some people still get it wrong!
Use the most common word to explain it.
Or just a common word. I have some relatively niche characters that have been given to me as ateji and I can still express what they are. I can’t even write them.
My irl nickname is Gunni so I use グンニ a lot.
My Japanese professor told us to write our names in katakana (because katakana is for non-japanese words /names)