Chirag-Mehta has done an amazing amount of research trying to pin down some common names for colors. Name That Color allows you to pick a hue and then play with all the variations to see what names come up. Its fun!

The diagram you will use to select the colors is based on the HSL color space. 

hsl_solid.jpg 

Thanks to Cynthia Tinapple at Polymer Clay Daily for suggesting I look at Chirag-Mehta’s site.