- Jan 2 Helen Herron Taft, 1st lady (1909-12)
- Jan 3 William Renshaw, British tennis player (Wimbledon 1881-6, 89), born in Leamington Spa, England (d. 1904)
- Jan 3 Ernest Renshaw, British tennis player (Wimbledon 1888), born in Leamington, England (d. 1899)
- Jan 5 Heinrich Gottlieb Noren, Austrian violinist and composer (Kaleidoscope), born in Graz (d. 1928)
- Jan 6 George Exton Lloyd, Anglican bishop and theologian, born in London, United Kingdom (d. 1940)
- Jan 12 James Mark Baldwin, American philosopher & psychologist, born in Columbia, South Carolina (d. 1934)
- Jan 13 Max Nonne, German neurologist (d. 1959)
- Jan 14 Wilhelm von Polenz, German writer (Der Pfarrer von Breitendorf), born in Cunewalde, Germany (d. 1903)
- Jan 18 Hans Goldschmidt, German chemist
- Jan 18 Raymond Huntington Woodman, American organist, choirmaster (Brooklyn First Presbyterian Church, 1880–1941), and hymn composer, born in Brooklyn, New York (d. 1943)
- Jan 22 Karel Stecker, Czech organist, pedagogue, and composer of organ and sacred music, born on Kosmanos, Bohemia, Austrian Empire (d. 1918)
- Jan 30 Charles Martin Tornow Loeffler [Martin Karl Löffler], German-born US violinist and composer, born in Schöneberg, Germany (d. 1935)