- Oct 6 Basil Zaharoff, Greek arms dealer (merchant of death), born in Muğla, Turkey (d. 1936)
- Oct 7 James Whitcomb Riley, American author and poet (The Raggedy Man), born in Greenfield, Indiana (d. 1916)
- Oct 16 Arnold Krug, German composer, born in Hamburg (d. 1904)
- Oct 16 Charles Harford Lloyd, British organist and composer, born in Thornbury, Gloucestershire, England (d. 1919)
- Oct 26 Ferdinand Georg Frobenius, German mathematician (Frobenius–Stickelberger formulae), born in Charlotteburg, Berlin, Germany (d. 1917)
- Oct 30 Johan Willem, illegitimate son of Dutch princess Marianne of Orange-Nassau and her coachman, born in Cefalù, Sicily (d. 1861)