- Feb 2 Louis Bourgault-Ducoudray, French Breton composer, born in Nantes, Frances (d. 1910)
- Feb 3 Georges Jacobi, German violinist, composer (The Black Crook), and conductor (Alhambra Theatre, London, 1872-98), born in Berlin, Kingdom of Prussia (d. 1906)
- Feb 5 Hiram Maxim, American-British inventor (Maxim gun, 1st automatic machine gun), born in Sangerville, Maine (d. 1916)
- Feb 5 John Boyd Dunlop, Scottish vet and inventor (pneumatic rubber tire), born in Dreghorn, Scotland (d. 1888)
- Feb 11 Sanuel Dana Greene, Lt Cmdr (Union Navy), (d. 1884)
- Feb 22 August Bebel, German socialist politician (one of the founders of the Social Democratic Worker's Party of Germany), born in Deutz (d. 1913)
- Feb 23 Carl Menger, Austrian economist (marginal utility theory, subjective theory of value), born in Neu-Sandez in Galicia, Austrian Empire (d. 1921)
- Feb 25 Alexis Hollander, German composer, born in Ratibor, Silesia (now Racibórz, Poland) (d. 1924)
- Feb 25 Otto Liebmann, German philosopher (Climax of Theories), born in Löwenberg, Silesia (d. 1912)
- Feb 28 Henri Duveyrier, French explorer of the Sahara, born in Paris, France (d. 1892)
John Philip Holland (1840-1914)
Feb 29 Irish engineer and father of the modern submarine, born in Liscannor, Ireland
- Feb 29 William Harvey Carney, American Civil War soldier (first African-American to be awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor), born in Norfolk, Virginia (d. 1908)