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The title: Anna Karenin vs Anna Karenina

The title has been translated as both Anna Karenin and Anna Karenina. The first instance naturalizes the Russian name into English, whereas the second is a direct transliteration of the actual Russian name.

Vladimir Nabokov explains: "In Russian, a surname ending in a consonant acquires a final 'a' (except for the cases of such names that cannot be declined) when designating a woman; but only when the reference is to a female stage performer should English feminise a Russian surname (following a French custom: la Pavlova, 'the Pavlova'). Ivanov's and Karenin's wives are Mrs Ivanov and Mrs Karenin in England and America—not 'Mrs Ivanova' or 'Mrs Karenina'."^[1]

As seen from the above quotation, Nabokov favours the first convention, but subsequent translators mostly allow the actual Russian name to stand. Larissa Volokhonsky, herself a Russian, prefers the second option, while other translators like Constance Garnett and Rosemary Edmonds prefer the first solution.