Gabriel Józef Narutowicz was born into a Polish-Lithuanian noble family in Telsze, then part of the Russian Empire after the partitioning of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. His father, Jan Narutowicz, was a local district judge and landholder in the Samogitian village of Brewiki (now Brėvikiai). As a result of his participation in the January 1863 Uprising against Imperial Russia, he was sentenced to a year in prison; he died when Gabriel was only one.