In 1985, Bowser was created by Shigeru Miyamoto to be the main villain for Super Mario Bros. His name was derived from Japanese names for Korean dishes, with kuppa being the one Miyamoto settled on (yukke and bibinba were the two other choices). The name Bowser was created when the game was released in North America.
The final design for Bowser wasn't what was initially created, as the one on the Super Mario Bros. boxart was drawn by Miyamoto himself, due to time constraints. He said he drew inspiration from the anime film adaptation of the Chinese novel, Journey to the West, with the homage being to Gyu-Mao, the film's main antagonist. It wasn't until Yoichi Kotabe joined Nintendo that Bowser's final design was created, which was based on a turtle rather than Miyamoto's original design, which was based on an ox.
