List of people from Kolkata

• S Wajid Ali
• Syed Mujtaba Ali
• Sharadindu Bandyopadhyay
• Kumudini Basu
• Suchitra Bhattacharya
• Sukanta Bhattacharya
• Buddhadev Bose
• Amiya Chakravarty
• Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay
• Shakti Chattopadhyay
• Nirad C. Chaudhuri
• Pramatha Chowdhury
• Upendrakishore Ray Chowdhury
• Dinesh Das
• Jibanananda Das
• Henry Louis Vivian Derozio
• Bishnu Dey
• Michael Madhusudan Dutta
• Satyendranath Dutta
• Sudhindranath Dutta
• Sunil Gangopadhyay
• Joy Goswami
• Gulzar
• Asit Kumar Haldar
• Amelia Horne
• Kazi Nazrul Islam
• Sisir Kumar Maitra
• Binoy Majumdar
• Mohitolal Majumdar
• Samaresh Majumdar (b.1944)
• Arun Mitra
• Dinabandhu Mitra
• Premendra Mitra
• Mimi Mondal, First Indian English writer who nominated for Hugo Award.
• Dhan Gopal Mukerji
• Shobhanasundari Mukhopadhyay, Shovana Devi Tagore, folklorist
• Subhas Mukhopadhyay
• Purnendu Patri
• Christopher Raja
• Annada Shankar Ray
• Dwijendralal Ray
• Sukumar Ray
• Tarapada Ray
• Samar Sen
• Badal Sircar, dramatist and theatre director
• Srijato
• Rabindranath Tagore, 1st non-European to win a Nobel Prize

The most famous religious figure of Kolkata is Mother Teresa. Others are (in order of surname):

• Bhakti Hridaya Bon (1901–1982)
• Bhakti Prajnana Kesava Goswami (1898–1968)
• Boro Maa, (1918–2019)
• A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada (1896–1977), founder of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON)
• Ramakrishna (1836–1886)
• Ram Mohan Roy (1772–1833)
• Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati (1874–1837), founder of Gaudiya Math
• Keshab Chandra Sen (1838–1884)
• Debendranath Tagore (1817–1905)
• Bhaktivinoda Thakur (1838–1914)
• Swami Vivekananda (1863–1902)
• Paramhansa Yogananda (1893-1952)

• James Atkinson (1780–1852), surgeon, artist and Persian scholar
• Sanghamitra Bandyopadhyay (born 1968), computer scientist
• R. D. Banerji, archeologist
• Sir Jagadish Chandra Bose (1858–1937), Bengali polymath, physicist, biologist, biophysicist, botanist and archaeologist
• Upendranath Brahmachari
• Bikas K Chakrabarti (born 1952), theoretical physicist and econophysicist
• Asima Chatterjee (1917–2006), chemist
• Debendra Mohan Bose (1875–1975), physicist
• Satyendra Nath Bose (1894–1974), physicist and polymath from Bengal
• Suniti Kumar Chattopadhyay (1890–1977), Bengali linguist
• Barun De (1932–2013), historian
• Brajendranath De (1852–1932), civil servant and orientalist
• Anil Kumar Gain (1919–1978), mathematician and statistician
• J.B.S. Haldane (1892–1964), British-Indian scientist, known for his work in the study of physiology, genetics, evolutionary biology, and mathematics
• Prasanta Chandra Mahalanobis (1893–1972), Bengali scientist and applied statistician
• R.C. Majumdar (1884–1980), historian
• P. J. Marshall (born 1933), historian
• Ujjwal Maulik (born 1965), computer scientist
• Subhash Mukhopadhyay (1931–1981), physician
• Sisir Kumar Mitra (1890–1963), physicist
• Shehla Pervin, Indian scientist and scholar
• Rajat Kanta Ray, historian
• Amal Kumar Raychaudhuri (1922–2005), physicist, known for his research in general relativity and cosmology
• Tapan Raychaudhuri (1926–2014), historian
• Tapati Guha-Thakurta (born 1957), historian
• Sukanta Chaudhuri (born 1950), literary scholar
• Ananda Lal (born 1955), academic and theatre scholar
• C. R. Rao (1920–2023), mathematician and statistician
• Prafulla Chandra Roy (1861–1944), Bengali chemist, educationist, historian, industrialist and philanthropist
• Meghnad Saha (1893–1956), astrophysicist
• Sir Jadunath Sarkar (1870–1958), historian
• Sumit Sarkar (born 1939), historian
• Susobhan Sarkar (1900–1982), historian
• Tapan Kumar Sarkar (1948–2021), electrical engineer
• Ashoke Sen (born 1956), theoretical physicist
• Sukumar Sen, historian of Bengali literature

Ashoka Chakra

• Flight Lieutenant Suhas Biswas

Maha Vir Chakra

• Squadron Leader Madhavendra Banerji

• Radhe Shyam Agarwal
• Amar Kumar Bera
• P. C. Bhattacharya, 7th Governor, Reserve Bank of India
• Aditya Vikram Birla
• Radhe Shyam Goenka
• R. P. Goenka (RPG Group)
• Sanjiv Goenka
• Chandra Shekhar Ghosh (founder of Bandhan Bank)
• Rajat Gupta (b. 1948)
• Ellis Jacob (founder of Cineplex Entertainment)
• Lakshmi Mittal
• Tiny Rowland (chairman of Lonrho from 1962 to 1993)
• Prannoy Roy (b.1949)
• Nalini Ranjan Sarkar
• Mutty Lall Seal

• Sri Aurobindo
• Maulana Azad
• Benoy Basu
• Khudiram Bose
• Rash Behari Bose
• Subhas Chandra Bose
• Jogesh Chandra Chatterjee
• Chittaranjan Das
• Jatindra Nath Das
• Sisir Kumar Ghosh
• Badal Gupta
• Dinesh Gupta
• Basanti Devi Haldar
• Matangini Hazra
• Bagha Jatin
• Bipin Chandra Pal
• Sudhamoy Pramanick
• Bidhan Chandra Roy
• Ashoke Kumar Sen

• A. T. M. Mustafa, Pakistani cricketer.
• Arjun Atwal, golfer
• Arnab Mondal, footballer
• Ashok Dinda, cricketer
• Chhanda Gayen, mountaineer, first Bengali woman to summit Mount Everest
• Chuni Goswami, footballer
• Deep Dasgupta, cricketer
• Deep Sengupta, chess grandmaster
• Dibyendu Barua, chess grandmaster
• Dipu Ghosh, badminton, Arjuna Award
• Gautam Sarkar, footballer
• Gobar Guha, wrestler
• Gurbux Singh, hockey, Olympic medallist (1964, 1968)
• Hira Mondal, Footballer
• Jagmohan Dalmiya, sports administrator
• Jaidip Mukerjea, tennis player
• John Holman, cricketer
• Jyotirmoyee Sikdar, track and field
• Krishanu Dey, footballer
• Laxmi Ratan Shukla, cricketer
• Leander Paes, tennis, Olympic medallist (1996)
• Len Stubbs, former cricketer
• Leslie Claudius, hockey, Olympic medallist (1924, 1928, 1936)
• Manohar Aich, body builder, Mr. Universe 1952
• Manoj Tiwary, cricketer
• Mehtab Hossain, footballer
• Mihir Sen, record swimmer
• Mohammed Ali Qamar, Indian Boxer, Gold medal in the Commonwealth Games.
• Mohammed Shami, cricketer
• Narayan Das, footballer
• Norman Pritchard, track and field, Olympic medallist (1900)
• Pradip Kumar Banerjee, footballer
• Pankaj Gupta, sports administrator
• Pankaj Roy, cricketer
• Pritam Kotal, footballer
• Pronay Halder, footballer
• Richard James Allen, hockey, Olympic(1928, 1932, 1936)
• Rimpa Haldar, Footballer
• Rohan Gavaskar, cricketer (son of Sunil Gavaskar)
• Sandipan Chanda, chess grandmaster
• Saurav Ghosal, squash player
• Shailen Manna, footballer, former India national football team's captain (guided India to Gold medal in 1951 Asiad)
• Sourav Ganguly, cricketer, former India national cricket team's captain, sports administrator, former BCCI president
• Subhasish Bose, footballer
• Subhasish Roy Chowdhury, footballer
• Subrata Pal, footballer
• Sudip Chatterjee, footballer
• Surya Shekhar Ganguly, chess grandmaster
• Syed Rahim Nabi, footballer
• Usha Rani Das, Footballer
• Vece Paes, hockey, Olympic medallist (1980)
• William Laidlay, cricketer
• Wriddhiman Saha, cricketer

Six Nobel Prize winners have been associated with Kolkata:

• Sir Ronald Ross (1857–1932) – Medicine, 1902
• Rabindranath Tagore (1861–1941) – Literature, 1913; first Asian to win the Nobel Prize
• Mother Teresa (1910–1997) – Peace, 1979
• Amartya Sen (born 1933) – Economics, 1998
• Abhijit Vinayak Banerjee (born 1961) – Economics, 2019
• CV Raman – Physics

The Ramon Magsaysay Award, sometimes called "Asia's Nobel Prize", is given "to perpetuate his example of integrity in government, courageous service to the people, and pragmatic idealism within a democratic society." Kolkata winners include:

• Mother Teresa (1910–1997) – Peace and International Understanding, 1962
• Satyajit Ray (1921–1992) – Journalism, Literature, and the Creative Communication Arts, 1967
• Gour Kishore Ghosh (1923–2000) – Journalism, Literature, and the Creative Communication Arts, 1981
• Mahasweta Devi (1926–2016) – Journalism, Literature, and the Creative Communication Arts, 1997

• Samik Bandyopadhyay (born 1940), critic of Indian art, theatre and film
• Tanmoy Bhattacharya (born 1958), politician
• William Carey (1761–1834), missioner and reformer
• Laksmikanta Roy Choudhury (1570–1649), Brahmin scholar, social and political figure
• Alexander Duff (1806—1878), missioner and reformer
• Manny Elias (born 1953), drummer, record producer; original drummer of the Tears for Fears
• David Hare (1775–1842), philanthropist and founder of many important and prestigious educational institutions of Kolkata
• Rajendra Prasad (1884–1963), politician, the first president of India (from 1950 to 1962)
• Romita Ray (born 1970), art historian
• Radhika Roy (born 1948), journalist
• Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak (born 1942), scholar, literary theorist, and feminist critic
• Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar (1820–1891), philosopher, academic, writer, translator, entrepreneur, social reformer and philanthropist; key figure of the Bengal Renaissance