FYI.. . In my humble opinion, Jay Fisher is one of this country's premiere knifemakers, and he has an awesome website, full of helpful knifemaking information.  I was perusing it tonight and discovered his amazing list of wood handle materials, complete with beautifully photographed samples of each wood in his list.  He also includes an equally amazing list of alternate names for the woods in his list, with links to their photos.  Here's the link for his website pages on wood handles:

 http://www.jayfisher.com/Custom_Knife_Handle_Materials_Woods.htm#Wo...._

Hope you all find Jay's website as useful as I have.  If any of you have come across any other equally informative and helpful websites, please post their links for us all to use.