A List of Characters from "Demons" by Fyodor Dostoevsky

Russian names are composed of first name, patronymic (from the father’s first name), and family name. Formal address requires the use of first name and patronymic; diminutives are commonly used among family and intimate friends; a shortened form of the patronymic (e.g. Yegorych instead of Yegorovich), used only in speech, also suggests a certain familiarity. Among the aristocracy, who spoke French at least as readily as Russian, the French forms of names were frequently used, such as Julie in place of Yulia.

• Alexei Yegorovich, or Yegorych (no family name)
• Drozdov, Mavriky Nikolaevich (Maurice) – a visiting gentleman and guest of Varvara Petrovna Stavrogin.
• Drozdov, Praskovya Ivanovna (Drozdikha)
• Erkel (no first name or patronymic)
• Fyodor Fyodorovich, called “Fedka the Convict” (no family name) – a roaming criminal suspected of several thefts and murders in the novel.
• Gaganov, Artemy Pavlovich
• Gaganov, Pavel Pavlovich
• G_____v, Anton Lavrentievich
• Karmazinov, Semyon Yegorovich
• Kirillov, Alexei Nilych – a Russian engineer who has been driven insane by the thoughts of God and life after death.
• Lebyadkin, Ignat, called “Captain Lebyadkin” (patronymic “Timofeevich never used) – the drunken former officer whose sister is secretly married to Nicolas.
• Lebyadkin, Marya Timofeevna, or Timofevna – Captain Lebyadkin's sister, rumored to have some connection to Nikolai Stavrogin's past.
• Liputin, Sergei Yegorovich (or Vasilyich)
• Lyamshin (no patronymic or family name)
• Semyon Yakovlevich (no family name)
• Shatov, Darya Pavlovna (Dasha)
• Shatov, Ivan Pavlovich (Shatushka) – a son of former serf to the Stavrogin, former university student and another intellectual who has turned his back on his leftist ideas. This change of heart is what attractes Pyotr Stepanovich Verkhovensky to plot Shatov's murder.
• Verkhovensky, Marya Ignatievna (Marie)
• Shigalyov (no first name or patronymic)
• Stavrogin, Nikolai Vsevolodovich (Nicolas) – the main character of the novel, and a complex figure, he has several inhuman traits about him that resemble a vampire in literature.
• Stavrogin, Varvara Petrovna – Nicolas’s mother, a rich lady who plays at being leftist.
• Tikhon – a bishop who, in Dostoevsky's original drafts, Stavrogin visited for guidance, and revealed some of the disturbing events of his past. Their interview has little effect on Stavrogin, but provides the reader a better understanding of his background. This chapter was not accepted by the censors and Dostoevsky excised it from the original version, in which Bishop Tikhon is not mentioned. The Pevear and Volokhonsky translation includes this chapter, called "At Tikhon's" in an appendix.
• Tolkachenko (no first name or patronymic)
• Tushin, Lizaveta Nikolaevna (Liza, Lise)
• Ulitin, Sofya Marveevna
• Verkhovensky, Pyotor Stepanovich (Petrusha, Pierre) – the son of Stepan and the cause of much of the destruction. He plays at being a true believer revolutionary though his only goal is to have power.
• Verkhovensky, Stepan Trofimovich – the philosopher and intellectual that is partly to blame for the revolutionary ideas that fuel the destruction that occurs in the book. He served as a father figure to Nicolas when Stavrogin was a child.
• Virginsky (no first name or patronymic)
• Virginsky, Arina Prokhorovna
• von Blum, Andrei Antonovich
• von Lembke, Andrei Antonovich (also called “Lembka”)
• von Lembke, Yulia Mikhailovna (Julie)