TBF, though Lucas allegedly coined (more accurately attributed to "model makers at ILM" instead of that assclown), various different projects' teams used terms like "wiggets" (2001:SO; <1968) and "nurnies" (B5; <1993) over the years, and the "greeble" version became popular only recently, in fact.

edit: my bad, didn't clock the "source" of OP's "fact" until just now