Joelle, Meg, Beth and Amy, the poes in the Forest Temple are named after the main characters from Little Women, Meg, Beth, Amy and Josephine.

The music for the Fire Temple once had chanting of an Islamic prayer as a part of the background music. The chanting was a stock sound effect from a sound library collection called "Voice Spectral - Volume 1" released by 'best service', and it also showed up in games like Cruis'n World for the Nintendo 64 and Kakuto Chojin: Back Alley Brutal for Xbox. Seeing the problems it could have caused, Nintendo changed it, and the updated version of the Fire Temple replaced the chanting with the wails and moans from the Shadow Temple's music.

There are several signs in Ocarina of Time that you can cut. In the Nintendo 64, Gamecube and Wii versions of the game, you can cut them diagonally. The 3DS Version of the game only allows you to cut them vertically and horizontally.

In the Hyrule Castle courtyard, in one of the windows you can see pictures of Mario, Luigi, Yoshi, Peach and Bowser. In Ocarina of Time 3D, the pictures were replaced with a Mario level background with warp pipes and blocks.

The sound of the Recorder (also known as the Flute or Whistle) In The Legend of Zelda was later used as the sound for the Warp Whistle in Super Mario Bros. 3, and can be heard in the title screen theme of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time.

At the bottom of the pool inside the Lakeside Laboratory is a motionless shark behind a set of bars.

The characters Talon and Ingo are loosely based on Mario and Luigi.

The game features a crash debugging tool that allowed the developers to find out information as to why the game has crashed. This is still present in all the Nintendo 64 releases, and can be accessed by inputting a series of button combinations after crashing the game. Information about the game and the environment that was present during the crash will be accessible from this screen.

The Version Info screen, however, not only has information about when the game's version was compiled, but also a message which reads, "I LOVE YOU".

Malon wears a brooch in the shape of Bowser's head.

After acquiring the three Spiritual Stones and obtaining the Ocarina of Time from Zelda, if players head straight to the Back Alley of Hyrule Castle Town, they'll find a fatally wounded Soldier. If players talk to him, he'll tell how Ganondorf betrayed the King and that he was injured trying to fight Ganondorf's men so Zelda and Impa could flee. He tells Link to head to the Temple of Time and dies soon after.

If players try to talk to him again, a message will appear saying "He's not moving anymore...."

In the German version, the carpenters are named John, Paul, George & Ringo, after the 60's British pop group The Beatles.

When starting development on Ocarina of Time, Nintendo weren't sure how large of a game they'd be able to make with the Nintendo 64's memory restrictions. Miyamoto even considered structuring the game in a similar fashion to Super Mario 64, with Ganon's castle being the hub. The Forest Temple with Ganon's doppelganger jumping in and out of paintings was an idea carried over from that period of development.

It's speculated that the forest and water temples in Ocarina of Time were originally wind and ice temples. The symbol on the Water Medallion from the Water Temple appears to have a snowflake on it, and the Forest Medallion design resembles a fan. This connection is further supported by the interior of Ganon's Tower, which is based on different temples. The Forest Temple portion of the tower has a wind puzzle based around fans, and the Water Temple portion of the tower is based on ice.

In the German version of Ocarina of Time, if you speak to Princess Zelda while wearing the Keaton mask, she will say:

"Was bist du denn? Ach, du bist eines dieser goldigen kleinen Taschenmonster, oder?"

Which roughly translates into:

"What are you? Oh, you're one of those golden little pocket monsters, right?"

Referencing the visual similarities between the mask and Pikachu.

Ocarina of Time was originally planned to be played in a first-person perspective, but it was changed to third-person because Miyamoto wanted the change from Young Link to Adult Link to be visible on screen. He also thought players should see Link because "he is so cool looking!"

During beta testing for Ocarina of Time, developers added an Arwing from the Star Fox series to the game to test enemy AI and Z-Targeting. While it was never actually used in the game, the code was never removed and can still be accessed via devices like GameShark and Action Replay.

If you go into the room with the giant statue inside the Spirit Temple, and aim the Hookshot at where the nipples would be, you will find that you can grapple on to them. It's possible this was a joke by Nintendo.

The Plaque that appears in Dodongos Cavern is the exact same one on the fountain in Super Mario 64.

It was originally planned for the Great Fairy to be blue and white. The beta model can be found in the game's data.

In some trailers of different Alpha/Beta-builds for the game, it can clearly be heard that both Navi and Link had different voice actors. It is also apparent that Navi had different lines of dialogue.