This is my favorite answer in this thread.

I believe the Mario brothers last name is actually Mario as well.

It's Mario Mario

and Luigi Mario

Samus is a good example. All of her games are called Metroid, they are not called Samus.

Not exactly true as since WW that has changed significantly which is why you don't even name Link in BOTW, he's an established character whose expressions are more subtle. He may be silent but he has personality as shown through his expressions and designs and it's not a case of him Linking the player and the game like pre-WW it's a case of now the player taking on his role and perspective.

WW, SS and BOTW did away with Link being a blank slate for the player to project onto, for example through playing SS you can tell he's the lazy archetype you see in popular animes while BOTW is more akin to Ghibli's Ashitaka.

Zelda is a legendary person in the game universe.

There's a legend about her and how she is saved by a young hero and so on a so forth.

Link is part of her legend.

Well you see...

It has to do with how the game was developed, specifically the order in which each part of the original game was made. They knew the game would be from a top-down perspective and feature a huge world for the player to explore. They then added items to mix up the gameplay and thats when the game started to come together. But it was at this moment that they realized that they still did not even have a name for it, and there was thi sone band the developers liked where the lead had a daughter named Zelda (or something like that), so they named the game "The Legend of Zelda" when it was like, halfway through production.

Heres another fun fact - the game was also supposed to mix elements of the past (which is still does) with elements of the future and have the player travel between the two. The player would act as the LINK between the past and future which is where the name Link comes from, and after scrapping the idea they never bothered to change the name.

I think the point he is making is that in each new Zelda game you are told of the lore and history of the Zelda family and yet when it comes to the lore of the Hero, it is always referred to as the Hero of Time, Hero of "something" The hero is never given a name. He is just a Legend essentially to the people. They know that someone came and saved them all, but his name is never known or was lost to the ages.

But hey, let me also play the devil's advocate here.


Why is it called Metroid when the metroids aren't the main characters?

Why is it called Catherine when Catherine isn't the main character?

Why is it called Baldur's Gate when the city of Baldur's Gate isn't where you send the majority of your time?

Why is it called Pikmin when the pikmin aren't the main characters?

I wonder if that is similar at all to Zelda?

I must research this.

That's meant to be the point each Hero is their own era and each incarnation is from a widely different origin people may know of a hero even if their name isn't remembered among the masses as these are people who rise up from nowhere from Hyrule's perspective, OOT was an orphan, SS was cadet, ALBW was a blacksmith, TP was a farmer, BOTW was an imperial guard etc...

The hero is the one who cements the lore of the Royal family for Hyrule this is why they're mentioned when any prior event is brought up because they're the ones who saw it through their lore is the legacy.

OK,

Miyamoto made the original Legend of Zelda inspired by the movie Legend, with Tom Cruise.

If you watched the movie, the princess was the catalyst of the story. So, since TLOZ is a role playing videogame, it made more sense to title it after the princess, because the hero wasn't necessarily called anything. You were the one who determined his name, "link" was meant to be an avatar, with no real backstory or weight to the character.

He was you, therefore it couldn't be called Legend of Link. And it couldn't be called "Legend" like Miyamoto wanted because that already existed. So Legend of Zelda it was.