- Feb 4 [Francois-Victor-]Jean Aicard, Fren playwright/poet (Jeune Croyances)
- Feb 5 Belle Starr [Myra Belle Shirley], US female outlaw (wild west)
- Feb 5 Joris-Karl Huysmans, French writer (Against the Grain)
- Feb 5 Ignacio Carrera Pinto, Chilean war hero (d. 1882)
- Feb 6 Luigi Mancinelli, Italian orchestral composer, born in Orvieto, Italy (d. 1921)
- Feb 14 Benjamin Baillaud, French astronomer, born in Chalon-sur-Saône, France (d. 1934)
- Feb 16 Hugo de Vries, Dutch botanist (How species emerge)
- Feb 17 Louisa Lawson, Australian suffragist and writer (d. 1920)
- Feb 18 Louis Comfort Tiffany, glassmaker (stained glass windows)
- Feb 20 Edward Henry Harriman, American railroad executive (d. 1909)
- Feb 23 Thomas Paine Westendorf, composer
- Feb 24 C Grant B Allen, Canadian writer (Woman Who Did)
- Feb 24 Johanna Barbiers, Dutch actress (Voddenraper of Paris), born in Zaandam, The Netherlands (d. 1927)
- Feb 24 Andrew Inglis Clark, Tasmanian politician (d. 1907)
- Feb 27 Hubert Parry, English musicologist and composer (Jerusalem), born in Bournemouth, England (d. 1918)