There are two primary colors in cats - black and red. All other colors are variations of black and red. Diluted black becomes blue and diluted red becomes cream.
Black can also dilute to chocolate, cinnamon, lilac or fawn; but they are seldom seen in cats. They're not impossible, just more rare.
The only exception to the black and red rule is white, but white is a masking gene, meaning it hides all other colors. Even an entirely white cat is either black or red, but the color is hidden by the white.
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White can occur on any pattern and they're called "with white" or "particolor."
The most common patterns are tabby and pointed. Patterns can occur on any breed of cat, not all pointed cats are Siamese, because it is more than just color and pattern that make up a breed.
Domestic cats have all the same colors and patterns that are seen in purebred cats.
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Tabby has four types: Classic, Mackerel, Spotted and Ticked. Sometimes it can be hard to spot the difference.
Points come in: Red (aka Flame), Cream, Seal, Blue, Seal Lynx, and Blue Lynx. Lynx is just a fancy way of saying there are tabby markings on the points. Most pointed cats have blue eyes.
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Calico is actually a term not often officially used anymore due to some confusion. Some calicos were torties with white and some were torbies with white.
Tortie is short for tortoiseshell. Torties combine two solid colors - red and black. The majority of torties are female, male torties are about 1 in 3000. The red and black colors are on the X chromosome, since females are XX it is usually only females that have both red and black.
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Torbie is short for tortoiseshell-tabby. When you add tabby stripes a tortie becomes a torbie. Since red often shows tabby stripes regardless, it's best to examine the black part of the cat for stripes instead.
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