According to former Rare employee Kev Bayliss and current creative director Gregg Mayles, the reason why Donkey Kong Country had the "Country" part of its name was because the game had been known as "The Country Project" during development, owing to the fact that Rare was effectively situated in the middle of the countryside. When staff from Nintendo visited them, they decided to keep 'Country' in the name.

In an interview, Steve Mayles recalled that during the development of Donkey Kong Country, "Rareware had the most Silicon Graphics machines in the world next to Boeing" with Kevin Bayliss adding "I seem to remember we actually received a phone call from the Ministry of Defence asking why we'd got all of this powerful hardware and what were we actually doing with it".

In the episode "Never Koop a Koopa" from the animated series "The Adventures of Super Mario Bros. 3", King Koopa wears a red cape towards the end of the episode, giving him a passing resemblance to King K. Rool. However, this is purely coincidental, as King K. Rool debuted four years after this episode aired in 1990, and in early concept art from around this time K. Rool looked much different. Incidentally, the cartoon version of King Koopa shares K. Rool's similar habit of wearing thematic costumes, and Bowser and his Koopa Troop would take up the Kremlings' usual role of stealing Donkey Kong's banana hoard during the Subspace Emissary story mode in Super Smash Bros. Brawl.

According to Donkey Kong Country animator and character designer Kevin Bayliss in 2019, when Rare co-founder Tim Stamper and Nintendo tasked him to redesign Donkey Kong and "bring it up to date", he originally wanted DK's design to be "compact" similar to how NES characters were previously designed, and wanted the character to show up "nice and clearly." When designing DK's new facial features, he used the same design as the Battletoads' eyes, noting that gorillas "look like they got this big brow". He later expressed frustration in 2025 that this design choice always made DK look "annoyed", in defense of a new, contentious redesign of the character first introduced in the 2023 film The Super Mario Bros. Movie and later incorporated into Nintendo's games starting with Mario Kart World.

Many players assumed that the redesign was derived from his appearance in the film, resulting in complaints that it represented a sterilization of the character's public image. Closer to the release of Donkey Kong Bananza, the game's producer Kenta Motokura and the character's creator Shigeru Miyamoto explained their reasoning for the redesign. Motokura revealed that the design was first conceived for Donkey Kong Bananza before being applied to Mario Kart World and the film, and was made to account for the former game's 3D gameplay. He stated that they first accounted for how players would spend the majority of their time viewing DK from behind before snowballing into more substantial "creative adjustments," using his design from the original arcade game as a reference point; Motokura quipped that they "returned to where it had all started" while overhauling his design. According to Miyamoto, the redesign was intended to make DK more expressive, citing Donkey Kong Jungle Beat as the starting point to the new direction they took his design.

The opening of the Gangplank Galleon theme in Donkey Kong Country was based on the title and menu theme to Rare's NES version of Sid Meier's Pirates!, which was also composed by David Wise.

In 2018, Donkey Kong Country designer Gregg Mayles posted a tweet off the heels of King K. Rool's reveal as a playable character in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate featuring a naming sheet from the former game's development dated to March 8, 1994. This document contains several proposed names for various characters and the game itself, with Monkey Mayhem being listed as a working title. Other differences include the following:

• The names "Blonde Kong" and "Honey Kong" were suggested as alternate names for Candy Kong.
• King K. Rool was originally named "Kommander K. Rool".
• Rock Krock was originally named "Krocrock".
• Slippa was originally going to be called "Mr. Hister". This particular name appeared to be changed late in development, as an unused hint from Cranky Kong mentions Mr. Hister.
• Squidge was originally named "Mr. Squidge".
• Clambo was originally named "Ms. Clamity".
• Cranky Kong and Funky Kong's names were originally spelled "Crankey Kong" and "Funkey Kong".

Additionally, the naming sheet lists several proposed characters absent from the final game:

• An owl Animal Buddy named Hooter. In the replies to his tweet, Mayles stated that Hooter "was going to light the way with its night vision", and that it was eventually replaced by Squawks the parrot.
• A mole Animal Buddy named Miney, likely playing off of the counting rhyme "Eeny, meeny, miny, moe".
• A "Kremling Magician" named Kloak, who would later appear in Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy's Kong Quest.
• A "Statue Kremling" named Krumble.
• A "Green Kremling" named Klanger.
• A "Robot Kremling" named Krocbot.
• A Moray eel enemy named Mobo.
• A fireball enemy named Fizzle.
• A yeti/"Iceman" enemy named Frozone. In the replies to his tweet, Mayles expressed amusement at "Frozone" also being the name of a character from the 2004 American animated film The Incredibles, stating that "We never used or copyrighted the name, so anyone could have used it." Indeed, "Frozone" is one of several entries on the naming sheet that doesn't have a trademark symbol attached to it. Coincidentally, the Donkey Kong Country television series would feature a yeti character of its own, Eddie the Mean Old Yeti.
• Two fish enemies named Bloop and Gloop; the latter would later appear as an enemy in Donkey Kong Land.
• A "nasty beetle" enemy named Veedub, who would later appear in Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy's Kong Quest under the name Click-Clack.

The "starburst" effect that occurs when bouncing on enemies is usually meant to expand, but in the first two Donkey Kong Country games, they were mistakenly coded to contract instead. This issue was fixed in the third game and the subsequent re-releases of all three games on the Game Boy Advance.