Java is a general-purpose, object-oriented programming language developed by Sun Microsystems of USA in 1991. Originally called Oak by James Gosling, one of the inventors of the language, Java was designed for the development of software for consumer electronic devices like TVs, VCRs and such other electronic machines.
The goal had a strong impact on the development team to make the language simple, portable and highly reliable.
The Java team which included Patrick Naughton discovered that the existing languages like C and C++ had limitations in terms of both reliability and portability. However, they modelled their new language Java on C and C++ but removed a number of features of C and C++ that were considered as sources of problems and thus made Java a really simple, reliable, portable, and powerful language.