The Gerudo, a race first introduced in The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, were largely inspired by the Arabic and Egyptian civilizations in the medieval Middle East. This can be alluded to by the Arabic and Egyptian themed locations and sculptures that the series has has to offer, in addition to the original design of the Crest of the Gerudo resembling an Islamic star and crescent. This symbol can be seen throughout the original release of Ocarina of Time on blocks, floor switches, and even the Mirror Shield. The similarities to the Islamic symbol caused controversy, and was changed to a new symbol in all re-releases of the game from the LodgeNet edition onwards.

In the Hyrule Castle Courtyard, there is a window to the left when you first enter. It's empty, save for a plant. If you take out your slingshot and fire at the plant, it will trigger a guard to appear and say "Hey You! Don't cause any trouble!" then throw bombs at you.

The track used for The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time commercials is "Riddle of Steel" from the 1982 film Conan the Barbarian. This same song was also later used for The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess E3 2004 trailer.

In the Master Quest version of the game, the Water Temple has an extra key that cannot be used. This is due to the fact that a flag in the game's code is accidentally set when Link defeats the three Stalfos in the room with the three dragon heads. This was fixed in the 3DS version.

A time paradox is created in Ocarina of Time. According to Guru Guru in Kakariko Village, Link played the Song of Storms as a child to speed up the windmill, yet Link is taught the song by Guru Guru as an adult. Because of this, the question of who originally composed the song remains a mystery.

Further proof that the Water Medallion was meant to be the Ice Medallion can be found in the fight with the Sorceress Sisters. Kotake's attack symbol (fire) has the same design as the fire medallion and Koume's attack symbol (ice) has the same design as the water medallion.

In Link's house there is a picture showing link with a fairy fighting a monster. Due to the fact that it looks like a dinosaur some have speculated it to be King Dodongo.

Charles Martinet has expressed interest in providing the voice of Link:

In some early versions of the game red blood can be seen throughout. The color was changed to green in later versions.

By using Gameshark codes, you can activate cutscenes that were originally going to be in the game. One is an early version of the prologue cutscene which takes place at sunset rather than night and three other cutscenes that take place in the Temple of Time, in which each cutscene focuses on each Spiritual Stone.

In an early beta version of the game, there was a place known as the "Unicorn Fountain". This was originally going to be where Link was to get the Triforce, and the ability to shoot beams from his sword. It is believed that it was to be accessed through the normally unreachable underwater cave in Zora's Domain.

The name of Link's horse, Epona, when translated from Gaulish means "Great Mare" and is the name of the Celtic God of horses, donkeys and mules.

At one point in the Spirit Temple in The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, Link must fight an Iron Knuckle that turns out to be a hypnotized Nabooru, who returns to her senses after being defeated. By clipping the camera through her Iron Knuckle armor, you can see her head modeled underneath her helmet, likely to facilitate the post-defeat cutscene where her armor falls off.

Furthermore, every other Iron Knuckle in the game also has a placeholder Gerudo head modeled underneath the helmet. While much of the head's face is obscured by chainmail, the details that are present indicate that it is most likely an early version of Nabooru's design; of note is that the head's hairstyle is closer to that seen on Gerudo Village's guards, implying that this element was reused for them when Nabooru's design was revised to the version seen in the final game.

This placeholder head is also present inside the Iron Knuckles that Link encounters in The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask, due to that game reusing many assets from Ocarina of Time.

In a 1999 interview published in a Japanese strategy guide for Ocarina of Time, series creator Shigeru Miyamoto revealed that Chain Chomps from the Super Mario Bros. series were planned to appear as enemies in Gerudo's Fortress. According to Miyamoto, the Chain Chomps would be able to capture Link and wrap him up in chains, requiring him to use the Megaton Hammer to break them and free himself. Chain Chomps were present up until the final revisions of the game; Miyamoto did not explain why they were removed.

After slashing a sign with your sword in Ocarina of Time, playing Zelda's Lullaby while near the sign will repair it. Once the song is finished, the solving a puzzle jingle plays and the sign magically repairs itself.

This same thing happens in Majora's Mask with playing the Song of Healing.

If the game detects that its cartridge is a pirated copy, Zelda's hair will turn into a giant pentagon in cutscenes, fishing will always result in a hooked fish escaping after 51 frames of animation, and Spoiler:the exit to Ganon's Castle during the escape sequence will be blocked off to Link, as Zelda will run right through the bars, leaving Link behind and making the game impossible to finish.

Although Majora's Mask is a direct sequel to Ocarina of Time, there was an officially licensed novel released set shortly after the events of Ocarina of Time. "Link and the Portal of Doom" was written by Tracey West and published by Scholastic in 2006 as part of the Nintendo Heroes series.

In the book, a mysterious portal suddenly appears in Hyrule which absorbs all things around it and threatens to destroy the land. Link and Navi have to travel across Hyrule to learn five parts of a song which will destroy the portal.

Although officially licensed by Nintendo, it's considered to be non-canon.

Much like how Bowser's laugh in Super Mario 64 is sped up for use as the Boo's laugh, Ganondorf's laughter is sped up to create the laughter of the Poe Sisters in the Forest Temple.

Eiji Aonuma started developing Majora's Mask because he had no interest in remaking new dungeons for Ocarina of Time's Master Quest mode.

While Link being able to manually jump either on his own like in Zelda II: The Adventure of Link or through the use of an item like the Roc's Feather from The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening is a recurring ability in the series, several 3D installments forgo this in favor of having Link jump automatically at the edge of a platform. There are conflicting claims by series producer Eiji Aounuma and series co-creator Shigeru Miyamoto as to who thought of the automatic jump during the development of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time and why. Aonuma claimed the autojump was directly inspired by the Roc's Feather and he had it implemented due to his own poor ability at playing platform games, wishing that the game could do the jumping for him. Miyamoto on the other hand claimed that he had thought of the autojump one morning and sprung it on the development team, who were planning to add a manual jump and were previously used to making Mario games, as an intentional limitation to see if they could "do all kinds of things." Manual jumping would be incorporated into a 3D Zelda game for the first time with The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild.