Why is an activation function notated as "g"?
The addition of the activation layer creates a composition of two functions.

"A general function, to be defined for a particular context, is usually denoted by a single letter, most often the lower-case letters f, g, h."

So it comes down to the reason that he uses the hypothesis representation h(x)=wX+b which is a function, and that is wrapped by an activation function denoted as g. The choice of g seems to be purely alphabetical.