Very Newbie Question about openings.

Firstly let me say hello to you all, thank you for this resource!

My question is regarding opening naming conventions. When you see an opening listed, for example the Sicilian or French, is it always White's play that created this configuration? A more concise question could be, if I were looking to study black openings, how would I go about finding black openings? Perhaps I'm not being clear but I think someone will be able to see my question. Thank in advance and Happy New Year to all!

Actually, it is usually(mostly? often? frequently?) Black who decides the opening. Like in youe examples, both the French and Sicilian are Black responses to 1 e4.

Yea, black's reply to white's opening often determines which lines are played. For instance, white playing e4 isn't an Alekhine's Defense until black plays Nf6, or a Sicilian until black plays c5. 

However, white playing 1. Nf3 is the Reti opening, and white playing 1. c4 is the English opening.  So it's a little bit of both.  :)

I thought Nf3 was Zukertort? In the Zukertort though, The variations are more important than than Nf3.

Names of openings are just historical accidents. For instance 1.e4 c5 is called The Sicilian, and 1.e4 c5 2.f4 is the Grand Prix Attack of the Sicilian. But the position after say 2.Nf3 doesn't have a name yet.

Similarly 1.e4 e5 is the Open Game, 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 doesn't have a name (while 2.f4 is the King's Gambit), then 2...Nf6 is called the Petroff or the Russian Game depending on where you live, and 2...d6 is the Philidor. But 2...Nc6 doesn't have a name. After 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6, there are several White moves that have names (3.Bb5 is the Ruy Lopez or Spanish, 3.d4 is the Scotch, etc) -- but after 3.Nc3, it depends again on what Black does.

None of this really matters. What some position is called isn't really that relevant.

The only way to get some idea of whether an opening is a system for black or white is that those with the word "defense" in their name are generally black openings, e.g., King's Indian Defense, French Defense, etc. As Scarblac indicates, the names of the openings aren't really the best way to pick one since they don't have any real relevance to the position.

Often, black will choose the opening in the game. Say, for example, white plays 1. e4. His/Her opponent can play a large variety of moves, and those will decide the opening. 1...e6 is the French, 1...c5 is the Sicilian, etc., but once black plays his opening, white may choose from many variations, or, black may choose from many variations.

zukertort is like the normal colle exept you move pawn to b3 and moving bishop to b2 instead of locking in the bishop with c3

Usually Black names the opening and White the variation, but there are lots of exceptions.

So there you are new at Chess and confused by the answer already.

Welcome to the World of Chess, a game invented by man that only a computer can play properly.

I don't think you can even speak of "the opening" and "the variation". It's the Bayonet Attack after the Mar del Plata Position in the Classical Variation of the King's Indian Defense...

With each move, you go one move deeper in the huge tree* that is all the possible chess openings; black and white both make choices all the time. And along the way, some of the positions have picked up names.

(*: yeah, it's a graph, not a tree...)

haha love this answer. Thanks for all the responses folks.