Why Mastodon?

After joining lemmy I decided to check out what else the "fediverse" has to offer which naturally led me to Mastodon which is actually pretty neat. However.....I can't help but wonder why in the world the name Mastodon was chosen? I guess I can buy some kind of meaning behind it and if so, fair enough. But... I still can't ignore that it feels like the naming equivalent of soggy cold toast and generates about as much excitement. I just feel like a name bit less....lame? would help a lot to generate buzz and hasten culture adoption of it. No idea what that name would be, just throwing it out there. Happy to be enlightened if this is an unpopular opinion.