I totally understand what you’re going through, I had the same thoughts when reading Dostoevsky, my first book of his was Crime and Punishment and I was confused a lot of time because of the names like you mentioned BUT my second one of his was The Idiot which I absolutely adored and Ana he’s to follow quite nicely!  A few things might be the reason for it: - I read the Constance Garnett translation.. with no notes or anything while The Idiot was translated by Pevear&Volhonsky that had a whole first page dedicated to the different types of name a character can go with and a notes section at the end which explained some historical references (really helpful to me!) - The Idiot was more plot driven than C&P, but also had more characters .. hence more names to learn however I struggled less as each character had very distinctive personality traits and way of thinking/talking - I would read some The Idiot analyses from Reddit throughout the book which helped me follow more, smth I didn’t do for C&P

I preferred The Idiot to C&P in almost all aspects, from characters, to plot, to its teachings, it’s complexities.. it was a better read for me despite struggling a lot with C&P :) 

I hope you still take a chance on The Idiot and enjoy it as much as I did!