Desmond’s surname Sandys is pronounced “sands”, so, you guessed it, his whole name is a pseudonym that sounds like “desert sands”, if you mumble it enough.
It’s a name chosen partly because Des has always enjoyed deserts on his travels.
It’s also a name chosen in honour of an English travel writer, George Sandys, whose book “A Relation of a Journey”, about his experiences in the Levant, was first published in 1621. He was also a poet and, for a while, a colonist in early Virginia.