Opposite of SET NAMES?

I am trying to get MySQL to use another charset instead of UTF-8 or latin1.

I've discovered the SET NAMES <charset name>; command, but it only seems to recognise utf8 and latin1.

Is there a command like "GET NAMES" to tell me which names are settable? I'm struggling to find one!

for list of mysql char-sets...look here (http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.5/en/charset-charsets.html)