If you’ve been following the Mario games since the NES days, there’s one thing you’ve probably wondered: why did they change Princess Toadstool’s name to Peach? What was wrong with the name Princess Toadstool? Does the word toadstool convey imagery unbefitting of royalty? Did they think the new name would tart her up and turn her into more of a sex symbol?
When I think of the word “peach,” all I can think about is that scene from Face/Off where Nicholas Cage is like, “I could eat a peach for hours.”
As it turns out, Peach was her name all along! She was renamed Princess Toadstool for U.S. and other western continents. Maybe Nintendo thought that Peach was too saucy of a name for our western Christian beliefs or something. Who knows?
The first time our beloved Princess was ever referred to as Peach in the U.S. was in a little SNES game called Yoshi’s Safari — a rail-shooter with some platforming elements and Super Scope support.
Since the game pretty much flopped, no one really noticed the name change so Nintendo changed it back to Princess Toadstool for Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars, although, there’s a point in the game where if the princess gets swallowed by a character, he says she tastes “peachy.” I always thought it was a vague vagina joke, but I had a dirty mind as a child.
Fast forward to the N64 era. Think back to a game called Super Mario 64. Maybe you’ve heard of it? It wasn’t until then that the name Princess Peach became ingrained in our minds, and it’s stuck ever since.
