Well, as far as I know, the orginal title of aLttP was indeed "ゼルダの伝説 神々のトライフォース" ("ZELDA no densetsu: Kamigami no TRIFORCE") which translates to "The Legend of Zelda: The Gods' Triforce" or "The divine Triforce". But back then, the American Nintendo branch apparently had fears that some ultra-prudish groups in the US might freak out if there were a game with the word "God" in it (OMG
blasphemy!), so they quickly had to come up with a new name and that's where "A Link to the Past" (obviously an English language pun) comes from.
So the original title does relate to the game because it revolves a lot around the Triforce and it somehow explains how it came into existence.
And it's similar with the other titles:
- The first one was called "The Hyrule Fantasy", that pretty much sums up the game: a fantasy action adventure.
- The second one, "Adventure of Link", also does exactly that.
- The same with "Link's Awaknening", because in the end you wake up and that's the goal of the game.
- Ocarina of Time: Here, a key item in the game is the name giver.
- Majora's Mask: As it has been said before here, it's about returning Majora's Mask, which also happens to be the final boss of the game, to the salesman.
- Wind Waker: Same as with OoT
- Twilight Princess: Referring to your sidekick.
[DS games: Can't comment, haven't played them]
So while some of the titles are indeed a bit cryptic, I think it's good the way it is. Because if you gave away too much in-game information in the title then this would be a huge spoiler. A (slightly exaggerated
) example: "The Legend of Zelda: The game in which you beat three dungeons, grow up by time traveling, beat some more dungeons and finally defeat Ganon" (guess which game I'm referring to...)