This Is Where Princess Peach Got Her Name

If you're an old-school gamer who's been playing since the days of the original Super Mario Bros., you know Princess Toadstool and Princess Peach to be the same person. She used the Toadstool name more often early on, but in the present day, you'll be hard pressed to find a mention of it. Peach reigns supreme now, it seems. And to be honest, the change happened so quickly that we barely even noticed.

When did that shift occur, though? When did Toadstool give way to Peach? The answer appears to lie in an old favorite: Super Mario 64.

You see, Princess Peach was always Princess Peach to the Japanese. That audience never knew her by any other name. When earlier Super Mario titles were brought over to the West, however, she was renamed to Princess Toadstool, seemingly to reference the fact that she was princess of the Mushroom Kingdom.

In Super Mario 64, Nintendo found a way to tie the two names together. The letter Mario receives at the beginning of the game is signed "Princess Toadstool," with another name more informally scribbled in pink underneath that: "Peach." We suppose that means, then, that her full name is Princess Peach Toadstool. Or perhaps Peach is a nickname? At any rate, this is the first time we saw the use of Peach in the West.

And it stuck. In all of the Mario games that came after, including modern titles like Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, and Super Mario Odyssey, Nintendo referred to the princess simply as Peach. The Toadstool name has largely faded out of existence, and that's probably for the best. Just about every other character in the Super Mario universe has a shortened nickname of some kind. Plus she loves to wear pink. Why not Peach, then?

And that's the story. That's how Princess Peach got her name, and how Nintendo essentially retconned her "Toadstool" name out of existence. Pretty interesting, eh?