Apparently, Saru got the lion’s share of nicknames from Wilson. In addition to this Star Trek: Discovery guest star calling the alien “Avatar,” he called him “Lurch,” in reference to the tall butler from The Addams Family. He also nicknamed him “Stilts” as a more generic reference to Doug Jones being incredibly tall, a trait which has helped him specialize in playing lanky aliens and monsters throughout his storied Hollywood history.
Sadly, none of Wilson’s specific nicknames made it into the final cut of the episode, likely because the Star Trek: Discovery producers feared a lawsuit from James Cameron over the reference to his own sci-fi franchise. The tongue-in-cheek Wilson also courted legal trouble by dropping references to real-life people in his nicknames for Saru. This included nicknaming the alien officer “Manute Boi” and “Yao Ming.”