- Dec 2 Charles Studd, English cricket all-rounder (5 Tests; Middlesex) and missionary (Cambridge Seven), born in Spratton, England (d. 1931)
- Dec 7 Joseph Cook, 6th Prime Minister of Australia, born in Silverdale, Staffordshire, England (d. 1947)
- Dec 13 Lucien Guitry, French actor (La Dame aux camélias), born in Paris, France (d. 1925)
- Dec 15 Abner Powell, American baseball utility, team owner and executive (first to use infield tarpaulin after rain), born in Shenandoah, Pennsylvania (d. 1953)
- Dec 15 Niels Ryberg Finsen, Danish-Farosese physician and phototherapist (Nobel Prize for Medicine 1903 for treatment for Lupus), born in Tórshavn, Faroe Islands (d. 1904)
- Dec 18 Edward Alexander MacDowell, American composer (Indian Suite), born in New York (d. 1908)
- Dec 20 Dan Leno [George Wild Galvin], English comedian and stage actor, born in Somers Town, London (d. 1904)
- Dec 21 Henrietta Szold, U.S. Jewish Zionist leader and founder of Hadassah, born in Baltimore, Maryland (d. 1945)
- Dec 22 Austin Norman Palmer, American penmanship innovator, born in Fort Jackson, New York (d. 1927)
- Dec 23 Harriet Monroe, American poet (You & I, A Poet's Life) and editor of Poetry magazine, born in Chicago, Illinois (d. 1936)
- Dec 25 Manuel Dimech, Maltese philosopher and social reformer (d. 1921)
- Dec 28 Alexander von Fielitz, German composer and conductor (Chicago Symphony Orchestra), born in Leipzig, Saxony (d. 1930)
- Dec 31 Joseph S. Cullinan, American oil industrialist, born in Pennsylvania, United States (d. 1937)
Greatest Generation
Silent Generation
Baby Boomer
Generation X
Millennial
Generation Z