Even googling “Lemmy” doesn’t bring up useful results.

It's not helped by the fact that it has the same name as a famous musician. Googling for Lemmy just brings him up — the Fediverse doesn't show up unless you scroll down a ways, if it even shows on the front page at all. Same with Tildes and Squabbles, both being already existing words. Branding is important for recognizability, and "Reddit" has the advantage of being a unique name.

Well, I hope that analogy isn't very accurate since the "new experience" those lemmings were pushed into didn't end well for the poor wee creatures.

I'm not discounting the possibility that spez himself is also evil — he's certainly done enough shady shit. He was once a mod of r/jailbait, after all, and he (or Reddit staff) had given one of the sub's founders a "Pimp Daddy" badge.