Add an unused entry to the front of the array, then indexes will align with the data in the way you want.

Here's a partial example:

#!/usr/bin/perl

# http://perlmonks.org/?node_id=1143022

use strict;
use warnings;

my @names = qw( aaa bbbb ccccc dddd ee fffff gggg hhhhhh );

# add unused item to front to align names with indexes

unshift @names, 'unused';

for my $index (1 .. $#names)
  {
  printf "%2d %s\n", $index, $names[$index];
  }
print "\nselect desired by number:\n";
my $in = <STDIN>;

# validate input

chomp $in;
$in =~ /^[\d,\s]+$/ or die "$in is an invalid input";

for my $index ($in =~ /\d+/g )
  {
  if( $index >= 1 and $index <= $#names )
    {
    print "selected $names[$index]\n";
    }
  else
    {
    die "$index is outside the allowable range\n";
    }
  }
[download]

This is perl. Why try to cope with "off by one" (add 1 or subtract 1?) if you don't have to? :)