Known in Japan as The Hyrule Fantasy: The Legend of Zelda. The main title was dropped in the US to make the name shorter and some claim it was to avoid confusion with the upcoming Squaresoft Final Fantasy game, which would debut a year later.
The Legend of Zelda was inspired by Shigeru Miyamoto’s explorations as a boy in the surrounding areas of his home in Sonobe, Japan. One of his most memorable experiences was finding a cave entrance in the middle of the woods. After some hesitation, he entered the cave and explored its depths with the aid of a lantern.
The story and setting were developed by Takashi Tezuka. He drew inspirations from fantasy books such The Lord of the Rings. The legend of the Triforce was written with inspirations from the battles of medieval Europe. The Master Sword was introduced as their version of Excalibur in A Link to the Past, which is regarded as reminiscent to the legend of King Arthur. Princess Zelda was named after American novelist, socialite and painter Zelda Fitzgerald. Tezuka modeled Link’s appearance after the eponymous character of Walt Disney’s Peter Pan.
What is your favorite Zelda memory?
Do they pronounce it “Zeruda” over there in Japan?
So, there’s a fun fact about that related to the Zelda series. You know how the Hylian language kind of sneaks out in enemy names? Like, Stal- is a prefix meaning skeletal, -fos is a suffix meaning warrior, so a stalfos is a skeletal warrior? And a lizalfos is a lizard warrior? A stalchild is a skeletal child. -orm or -arm means worm creature, like Moldorm.
Well, in the games prior to the N64, geld- meant desert or sand. The geldarm is a sand worm creature, the geldman is a sand man like enemy from Link to the Past. Then in Ocarina of Time there’s a race of women from the desert called Gerudo. Hmm.
What is the -o suffix used for?
Nothing I’m conscious of, though a lot of the names of races or peoples end in an oh or ah sound. Zora, Rito, Gerudo, Shiekah,
They do, because the Japanese table of phonemes is very limited compared to English.
But they will typically deemphasis the ru by making it quick and attached to ze.
“ZEru DA”
Basically. The R sound isn’t the same as English’s R so it’s a bit misleading in romaji, but basically yes.