I can vouch for your experience as mine has been the same, also on a Fairphone on which I installed /e/OS. I could have literally written the same comment myself — em-dash usage included!
when they eventually found a new name "murena" it appears they then decided to use it as a brand for the phones that they themselves sell instead, keeping /e/OS as the name for the operating system
I just checked and Murena is an eel, too. Imho, one of the ugliest fish one could choose as a mascotte :S
curiously i always thought morays look cute.