Headphones used to be a interest of mine, I spent a lot of time over at Head-Fi. Usually the first step is to find out what type you're even looking for.
There are 4 main groups of headphones - in-ear, earbud, supra-aural, and circumaural.
In-ear is like a ear-plug, designed for sound isolation. You should know what a earbud is. Supra-aural means the headphones sit flat on top of your ear. Circumaural are the large headphones where the cups go around your ear.
The second consideration is whether the headphones are 'open or 'closed'. Open headphones will leak out sound that's usually audible to anyone in the room; usually makes them unusable in any public places. However the trade off is sound quality that gives speakers worth the price of a new car a run for their money.
Closed headphones will seal the sound with minimal leak(commonly used in studios for recording), but because the sound is trapped and unable to escape freely, the sound quality is generally considered lower than open headphones. If you asked me to describe it, I'd say the closed headphones tend to sound more "ting-y".
One last consideration is the impedance. Basically, it tells you how much energy the headphones want to power the drivers properly. They're commonly marked in the specifications with a number followed by an omega symbol. Higher the number, the more power hungry the headphones are. 16-64 ohms are generally what I look for out of most headphones as it will enable you to use it with most sources, such as ipods, laptops, speakers, etc. Top level headphones can be around 150-600 ohms and you'll most definitely need an amplifier for those.
In terms of brand, as others have mentioned, Sennheiser is a great company and my last 3 headphones have been theirs.
Or alternatively, you could let everyone around you know how you have no knowledge of headphones whatsoever by buying Beats or Skull Candy. ;)
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