Russian naming conventions

[jmc_bks]

I must Google Russian naming conventions.  Started reading Quinn's What Happens in London and the name Olga Petrova Obolenskiy Dell -- used in the first paragraph -- is making me twitch.   I thought Russian names were feminized and masculinized:  take the tennis siblings Marat Safin and Dinara Safina; Anna Karenina and her husband, Alexei Karenin.

I can't continue until I know if the name's gender is correct. 

ETA:  surnames for women should end in -a but for a few excepts, it appears.  Check here,  here and here. 

Also, Petrova as a patronymic doesn't seem quite right.  It looks like a last name to me, and like the patronymic should be Petrovna.  No?

The question now is whether I'm going to let this bother me and put me off reading the rest of the book.  Is it sloppy research? Indifference to the naming convention?  Does it matter?  I should let it go, it's just one little thing.

Comments

[sarahf.livejournal.com]

If it's Quinn, to my mind, it's sloppy research. I stopped because her voice was too modern for me for historical romance, but I also found her research execrable.

[jmc-bks.livejournal.com]

Quinn's heroines have always felt a little modern to me, and her dialogue, too. Despite that, I liked the early Bridgerton books. Her recent stuff not so much.

[dogzzz2002.livejournal.com]

So did you finish it or toss it aside?

[jmc-bks.livejournal.com]

I tried to read it...it put me to sleep. It's going into the trade/donate pile.