The rent-roll of Akbar, the 16th century Mughal emperor, and the work of a Bengali poet, Bipradas Pipilai, of the late 15th century, both make mention of the city's early name being Kolikata, from which Kolkata/Calcutta are said to derive.
There is much discussion about the origin of the city's name. The most accepted view is that it comes from the Hindu goddess Kali and the original name was CaliKshetra, "the place of Kali".
Other theories include:
The name comes from the location of the original settlement beside a khal ("canal" in Bengali)
The place was known for the manufacture of shell-lime, the name deriving from kali ("lime") and kata ("burnt shell")
The name is derived from the Bengali kilkila ("flat area"), which is mentioned in the old literature.
The name came into being when Job Charnock asked a farmer the name of the area around Hooghly River. The farmer misunderstood due to language problems and thought that he was referring as to when he harvested his paddy . He proudly replied "Kal Kaata" meaning "I cut it yesterday ." Job Charnock thought that the name of the place is Calcutta .

The area where the city is now located was originally inhabited by the people of three villages: Kalikata, Sutanuti and Gobindapur. However, the boundaries of the three villages gradually became less distinct, and before the battle of Plassey, the city could be divided into four different sub-areas: European Kolkata (Dihi Kolkata); a residential village with some sacred spots (Gobindapur); a traditional Indian market (Bazar Kalikata or Burrabazar); and a riverine mart concentrating on cloth trade (Sutanati).[3] After the battle of Plassey in 1757, the British started rebuilding the city with the idea of making it the capital for their empire.
The Calcutta High Court ruled in 2003[4] that Job Charnock, the Englishman generally believed to be the founder of the Calcutta, is not the founder of the city and that hence Kolkata has no birthday. According to the Court, the city has its genesis in the Maurya and Gupta period and it was an established trading post long before the Slave Dynasty of the Delhi Sultanate, the Mughals, the Portuguese, the French or the British established a modern township there.
References to the existence of an ancient riverine port (named Kalikata) exist in the travel journals of Chinese scholars and Persian merchants dating from centuries BCE. The Hindu epic Mahabharata, lists the King of "Vanga", as having fought alongside the Kauravas in the great war.
The British East India Company chose the place for a trade settlement. In 1698, the East India Company bought three villages (Sutanuti, Kalikata and Gobindapur) from a local landlord family of Sabarna Roy Choudhury. The next year, the company began developing the city as a Presidency City. In 1727, on the order of King George I, a civil court was set up in the city. The Calcutta Municipal corporation (now renamed Kolkata Municipal Corporation) was formed and the city had its first mayor.