How much do we really know about Yoshi? He or she has been Mario’s faithful companion since Super Mario World on the SNES. Since then he has escorted baby versions of Mario in the Yoshi’s Island series, a very critically acclaimed series, and even has an upcoming title on the WiiU in the form of ‘Yoshi’s Wooly World’.
According to an old Nintendo Character guide from 1993, found and with some pages uploaded to twitter by Console Wars author Blake Harris, the full name of the beloved Nintendo dinosaur is T. Yoshisaur Munchakoopas. The character guide’s full description of Yoshi reads “Yoshi, properly known as T. Yoshisaur Munchakoopas, had been held captive in an egg until Mario (homo nintendonus) bopped along and rescued him. Instantly, the young dinosaur and the plumber became fast friends. Together, they set out to rescue Yoshi’s dinosaur pals from the wickedness of Bowser.”
Nintendo have a habit of adding strange quirks to their characters which eventually become forgotten about. The Phillips CDi Legend of Zelda games contain lots of information that has since been considered non-canon. One of my personal favourite examples of this comes from am old Strategy Guide for Super Smash Bros. Melee which lists the official names for all the characters different moves, this can be found here. Personal favourites include Ganondorf’s Wizard’s Foot and Yoshi’s Noggin Dunk. Either way, despite this rediscovery of T. Yoshisaur Munchakoopa’s full name it seems unlikely Nintendo will stray away from the handy shortened version in the future.
