Based on http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/idiot/characters.html, indexed and adapted* by William B. Moore.

NOTES:

1. Prince Lev Nikolayevich Myshkin  -  The hero and protagonist of the novel. Myshkin is a descendant of an old noble line and a distant relative of Madame Yepanchin. He is a fair-haired, blue-eyed epileptic in his late twenties, returns to Russia after four years in a Swiss sanitarium. Myshkin's innocence, naïvete, impracticality, compassion, and immense kindness, lead most characters to consider him an "idiot."

2. Anastassya Filippovna Barashkov  -  An immensely beautiful femme-fatale in her mid-twenties whom many of the characters call "mad." Nastassya Filippovna was once a ward of Totsky.

3. Parfyon Semyonovich Rogozhin -  A dark-haired, dark-eyed twenty-seven year-old who is descended from a long line of merchants. Rogozhin is madly and passionately in love with Nastassya Filippovna.

4. Aglaya Ivanovna Yepanchin -  A beautiful twenty-year-old beautiful and the youngest daughter of General Yepanchin and Lizaveta Prokofyevna. Aglaya is haughty and childlike in her caprices, but also very romantic and idealistic.

5. Gavril Ardalyonovich Ivolgin -  A thin, fair-haired, good-looking young man of twenty-eight. Ganya is highly vain and ambitious. Although the epitome of mediocrity, he strives for originality.

6. Ivan Fyodorovitch Yepanchin  -  A fifty-six year-old general. Yepanchin is a wealthy and respected member of St. Petersburg society.

7. Lizaveta Prokofyevna Yepanchin  -  A distant relative of Prince Myshkin and the wife of General Yepanchin. Her greatest anxiety in life is finding suitable husbands for her three daughters.

8. Alexandra Ivanovna Yepanchin -  The oldest daughter of the Yepanchins, who is twenty-five and unmarried. Although Alexandra's parents worry about her marriage, she feels very calm. Highly educated and well read, she has a talent for music.

9. Adelaida Ivanovna Yepanchin -  The middle daughter of the Yepanchins, who is twenty-three. Adelaida, like her older sister, is very cultivated and expresses a talent for painting. She is engaged to Prince S.

10. Hippolite Terentyev -  A seventeen year-old consumptive, aware of his approaching death and feels like an outcast of nature. Hippolite is a friend of Kolya and the son of Madame Terentyev.

11. Afanassy Ivanovich Totsky -  A rich aristocrat and ward of Nastassya Filippovna whom he attempts to marry off to Ganya to get her off his hands.

12. Yevgeny Pavlovich Radomsky -  A young and dashing suitor to Aglaya Yepanchin. Radomsky retires from the military just before he takes part in the novel's action.

13. Prince S. -  The good-looking, rich, and intelligent fiancé of Adelaida Yepanchin.

14. Lebedev -  A rogue, drunkard, liar, and recently widowed father of a large family.

15. Ivan Petrovitch Ptitsyn -  An ordinary man just under thirty who manages to collect a large fortune by being a usurer. Ptitsyn is suitor to Varya Ivolgin.

16. Ardalyon Ivolgin  -  Ganya's father, an ex-general. General Ivolgin has lost his circle of friends in high society due to constant drinking and lying.

17. Nina Alexandrovna Ivolgin  -  General Ivolgin's wife. Nina Alexandrovna, a dignified woman of about fifty, is the mother of Varya, Ganya, and Kolya Ivolgin.

18. Varvara Ardalyonovna Ivolgin (later Ptitsyn)  -  Ganya's dignified twenty-three-year-old sister.

19. Nikolai Ardalyonovitch Ivolgin  -  Ganya's teenage brother. Kolya is a good-natured boy who becomes friends with Prince Myshkin. Kolya is also friends with Hippolite, whom he visits throughout his illness.

20. Ferdyshchenko -  Insolent lodger in the Ivolgin apartment at the beginning of the novel. He strives to be original, yet most regard him contemptuously as a drunkard and an amoral rogue.

21. Burdovsky -  A young man who claims to be the son of Pavlishchev, Myshkin's late benefactor.