Tingle's effeminate mannerisms have caused many fans to assume the character is supposed to be gay, and so much so that in 2006, GayGamer named Tingle as gaming's #1 "gayest character". The Legend of Zelda series producer Eiji Aonuma would say to Kotaku in 2015: "He's not gay. He's just an odd person." The Tingle spin-off games very overtly portray Tingle as a heterosexual man, with Ripened Tingle's Balloon Trip of Love being a combination of a dating simulator and point-and-click adventure where every date is female, while in Freshly-Picked Tingle's Rosy Rupeeland, part of Tingle's motivation is that he wants to be with beautiful women.

According to director Jun Tsuda, the game's story and characters were inspired by the L. Frank Baum novel "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz". Tinkle's journey "in search of something" was meant to be based on Dorothy Gale's journey through Oz, and his companions are direct parodies of the Scarecrow, the Tin Woodman, and the Cowardly Lion.