Here’s showrunner Jac Schaeffer talking to EW about it:
“There were early conversations [about Hulkling],” Schaeffer said. “[Eddie] was originally called Teddy because we were looking at the artwork and thinking about that. That was a Marvel decision to not have him be Hulkling for the purposes of our show. Within our show, he is not Hulkling…but we pivoted to Eddie because he is named after a person that is important to the writers’ room. It wasn’t sort of teasing the fans, it was one of those lovely tributes to somebody who matters to us.”
I’m guessing not having Hulkling is to leave the “young green superhero” slot open for Skaar.
Also the person you date as a Teenager (full name) is rarely the person you ultimately end up with.
Also also, Billy is about to go on a HUGE adventure. Teasing Hulkling on the sideline with no intention of using them and just leaving them in the sideline would annoy fans and limit your ability to introduce Hulkling in a new way later on.
They’ve combined characters before. Maybe Skaar will become known as Hulkling and not be Teddy, but take on some of his personality traits?
I haven’t read much about either character in the comics so I dunno how well that would work out, but do we really need two more big green characters?