From what I can remember, the castle had a different name at first. I found this online: Even in its original concept stages, Disneyland had a castle. It was just part of Walt's vision from the outset. Before and during construction of Disneyland in 1954 - 1955, the name of the castle fluctuated. Sometimes called the Fantasy Castle, Fantasyland Castle, Walt even referred to it as Snow White's Castle once. However, with the opening of Disneyland and the premiere of "Sleeping Beauty" just a few years away, plus the built-in publicity machine of a weekly television series, Walt saw a marketing opportunity to build buzz for a movie not yet released. Shortly after the park opened, Walt overheard some guests asking to go up inside the castle (which was never intended to house and attraction). Walt ordered the creation of the Sleeping Beauty walkthrough, even before the release of the film (and the walkthrough attraction is being rebuilt for the 50th anniversary release of the film this year). - Missshelly  690.3 #147 10:46PM

Walt used the castle walk through that opened in 1956 as a commerical promo for the movie and it was called Sleeping beautys castle from the begining...first attraction of its time that opened before the movie - Dave  8639.3 #2 10:47PM

It was always Sleeping Beauty castle. The movie was in production for years. On a side note, remember when there was a candy store in the castle? - disney42dude(CM)  521.7 #222 10:48PM

Aaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!! - KelBelle  452.8 #271 10:49PM

They were already working on Sleeping Beauty and it was supposed to come out much sooner. They named the castle after her to promote the movie. - TickledTink  352.8 #406 10:49PM

and Aaaaaaahhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!! - TickledTink  352.8 #406 10:50PM

Good question!!! I love when things like this get brought up. - courtney-rella  13.3 #5961 10:51PM

Oh ok. That's cool. Thank you. I've thought of this before tonight. Thank heavens for MouseWaiters!  - JediTrance  71.1 #3387 10:51PM

Walt Disney also used the Tinkerbell character to promote Disneyland, because he didn't want Mickey Mouse to be associated with Disneyland if it should fail. That's why you see Tinkerbell fly over the castle. Needless to say, Disneyland was not a failure. - OynnhoJ  92.5 #3112 10:51PM

@oynnho I'm pretty sure Disneyland is a major failure...  lol. Thank you my ever helpful mousewaiters! - JediTrance  71.1 #3387 11:01PM

@JT I thought of you this weekend at comic con with all the steampunk costumes! One guy had a handmade time machine he carried around. - Polkadobo  372.1 #371 11:06PM

Aww shucks @Polk!  I  steampunk. I'm starting on my sleeping beauty steampunk costume in sketch form! I'm hoping to have a job soon to start buying what I need. And that sounds really cool, a time machine, one day I'll make it to comic con... - JediTrance  71.1 #3387 11:10PM

They had a panel on Saturday but we didn't make it in time. A lot of them asked to take a photo of me which was could have been described as Ancient Steampunk (a greece inspired Bubo the owl costume from Clash of the Titans). I modified goggles to look like an owl face. Maybe i'll turn it into a proper Victorian style outfit someday. - Polkadobo  372.1 #371 11:14PM

Sounds awesome!! (and secretly I'm glad I'm not the only that thinks of MWers in the real world. Lol) steampunk is pricey but sooo very cool!! - JediTrance  71.1 #3387 11:19PM

I hope you get to make your costume soon - I'd like to see it! My SIL's boyfriend wanted me to do my owl costume in steampunk but as you said, it's really expensive to acquire or make all those beautiful pieces. I'll post a pic of my costume to the flickr feed as well as the handheld time machine guy. - Polkadobo  372.1 #371 11:22PM

Your costume would look very cool in the steampunk style. And I wonder how heavy his time machine was... But I was very cool! Thanks for posting those. - JediTrance  71.1 #3387 11:44PM

It looked really heavy. He wasn't moving around much. The digital numbers actually would change and roll backwards and forwards like a time machine. Someone asked him if he made it and he said "of course, they don't sell these at walmart." - Polkadobo  372.1 #371 11:48PM