As a newbie on my first renovation, I had no idea what I was getting into when the contractor asked for wall color. “White,” I said. “Which one?” he asked.

In the world of paint, there are hundreds of shades of white that differ from one maker to the next, from Benjamin Moore’s Chantilly Lace and Bavarian Cream to Behr’s Swirling Water and Wind’s Breath. How do you make sense of such frothy monikers, and how do you choose?