Mongoose: Where Did The Name Come From?

Dear Mongoose,
I really like reading your answers every week. You and me seem to have a lot of things in common. I'm just curious about your name. I could be wrong, but I wouldn't figure that your mama named you that. Can you give us more information about how the name came about?

Dear Rumpelstiltskin,
The oldest memory I have is being in a warm, dark place and suddenly being pulled out into the light, being spanked on the bottom and having my bellybutton tied into a knot.  It all gets fuzzy after that, trauma induced I’m sure.  With that being said, I don’t remember the first time I heard my name called.  Not unlike Spiderman and Peter Parker, Superman and Clark Kent, Barack Obama and Barry Soetero (look it up), fortunately or unfortunately, Mongoose is not my given name.  If only I had a mythical like back story to explain the origins of Mongoose such as hearing my mother scream from the back room of our remote cabin tucked deep in the woods of Blue Holler, or on the banks of Bear Creek, or along the knob of Chalybeate, crawling towards the cries of a woman being threatened by a 6 and a half foot rattle-headed copper snake, I, at the ripe old age of 4 months, grabbed the snake by its rattles, swung it around my head like a lasso and slinging it directly into the boiling water my bottle of tiger milk was being heated in.  That will work, I’ll stick with that.
We'll See Ya, 
Mongoose