What's In A Name?

I often get telegrams asking me where I got the word 'Sirocco' from. Some ask whether I took it from a computer game, some ask whether I like Volkswagens, some even ask me if I'm a fan of some band in Australia. I once even got a vindictive accusation that I had spelled 'Scirocco' wrong (Scirocco and Sirocco are alternative spellings of the same word). But none of these are true. I did, in fact, get the name from a dictionary. Bit boring, yes? It all started like this:

Years and years ago when I was just a wee little lad (around seven or eight perhaps?), full of imaginative and budding ideas, a friend (who, coincidentally enough, was the one who introduced me to NationStates) and myself decided to create a world and populate it with made-up characters. We created stories, maps, mythologies and put everything we created in a little customised (i.e. lots of sticky tape and cut-out paper) book which I still have. The main heroes were Longnose (he had a long nose - I wasn't THAT imaginative) and Roko Moon who fought the evil villains King Bind and Emperor Scargon, the despotic tyrants of the world. We couldn't think of a good name for this world, so we got a dictionary and looked for a word that had the right sound to it. Eventually, we came across the word 'Sirocco'. We liked it. It stuck. The book was called "The Book of Sirocco".

Anyone wondering why I just plumped for 'King Siroc' as the nation's leader may be interested to know that one of the two moons orbiting Sirocco was called Siroc. The other was called Roko. There weren't any flightless hippos on this Sirocco, though, I didn't dream them up until NationStates! The kind of creatures we did have were the Sirocbulls, the Xyra fish (think whales, only with lots of teeth), and the warring clans of snakes led by the kings Yiza and Liza. There was also realms belonging to The Dongo Emperor, Lord Baud, and The Ferrets. These kingdoms and empires took up a lot of the maps!

The 'goodies' were pretty much relegated to being a rebel gang, hiding in Sirocco's capital city which I called Chcot for long-forgotten reasons. It sat at the base of the inauspiciously named volcano Mount Erupto. There's a lot of volcanoes on Sirocco's map. I liked volcanoes. Anyone familiar with my nation will know I called the capital city Chcot. Now you know why!

Incidentally, the Wikipedia says this of the Sirocco (which, if you didn't know, is a type of hot, dry wind in the Mediterranean; a type of sandstorm):

"The corroding wind of a hot Sirocco has known depressing effects."

I can assure you this is not true. When I'm aroused I am the sexiest thing on the planet, baby. Oh yeah.

Here's two random excerpts from The Book of Sirocco, unedited (spelling/grammar mistakes and all, though I can't include the drawings, alas):

Name: King Liza
Age: 500!
Background: King Liza is King Yiza's evil counterpart. He leads an empire of rebellious snakes. He is strong, powerful and has a nasty bite. He is locked in a constant battle with King Yiza. He isn't very good on the defensive side. He cannot make such good bites as Yiza
Height: Large snake
Status: Bad guy
Skills: making plans on the offensive side and biting. His territory can be found on the south western area of Strandof

Name: Noog
Age: 44
Background: Noog is a door to door sales man who sells the most terrible faulty items eg. brushes with bristles that fall out etc. he makes the items himself his best friend is ododd the dumb bird. He is part of the resistance.
Height: S of person
Status: Good Guy
Skills: None unless you count his serendipity

I'll maybe talk more about this later. There's a lot to Sirocco's origins!