Vlad III, Prince of Wallachia was a member of the House of Drăculești, a branch of the House of Basarab, also known as Vlad Drăculea or Vlad Dracula. The name means 'Dragon' or 'Devil'. Trust me... my grandmother was born in Transylvania.
Vlad the Impaler was called a lot of things by his enemies, but he did not drink people's blood like many people think today. That was propaganda on the part of his enemies. It was true that he impaled thousands and thousands of people and that as a warrior he was incredibly brutal. However, he was no different than anyone other king of his day and he was far from the only one who impaled people. His enemies were no less cruel and brutal, most especially the Ottoman Turks. He was in a real sense the father of Romania today and much of his building projects can be found today, including the city of Bucharest. While the rest of Europe did nothing, he was one of the few who did anything to oppose the Ottoman's attempts to invade Europe and for that he deserves to be regarded as a national hero.
Vlad III the Impaler (Vlad Ţepeş IPA: ['tsepeʃ] in common Romanian reference; also known as Vlad Dracula or Vlad Drăculea and Kazıklı Bey in Turkish; November or December, 1431 – December 1476) was Prince (voivode) of Wallachia, a former polity which is now part of Romania. His three reigns were in 1448, 1456–62, and 1476. In the English-speaking world, Vlad is best known for the legends of the exceedingly cruel punishments he imposed during his reign, and serving as the primary inspiration for the vampire main character in Bram Stoker's popular Dracula novel.As Prince, he led an independent policy in relation to the Ottoman Empire, and in Romania he is viewed by many as a prince with a deep sense of justice[1] and a defender of Wallachia against Ottoman expansionism.Visit: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vlad_tepes.
The name is pronounced like Vlad Tzepesh. He is known for jabbing the corpses of thieves into poles. That is why he was called "Tepes" which comes from "teapa" meaning "spike". "Dracul" wich comes from "drac" meaning "devil" ("Dracul" means "The Devil"). Trust me, I'm from Romania, and I live in the side of Romania called Wallachia wich in Romanian is called "Valahia". And he wasn't actually a prince. In Romania existed no prince, princess, king or queen. They were called "domnitori" wich comes from " a domni" wich means "to rule".
Indeed, it is unknown whether Vlad Dracula was the actual inspiration for Stoker. It has been argued that it was the name rather then the actual historical person that inspired the author. Stoker had, indeed, very few resources on Vlad Tepes, so that may explain any difficulty he had. However, there is one huge mistake which leads historians to leap on the idea that it was merely the name that inspired Stoker: his Count is a Szekely, a people believed to be descended from the Huns. Vlad Tepes was a Wallachian. In addition, Stoker's Dracula was spending his time mostly in Wallachia or later, a prison in Hungary. He was born in Transylvania, and was a lord of Transylvania but was then prince of Wallachia and only visited his birth place to impale a few thousand people and then leave. So the bond between him and Transylvania is very weak - him being historically a Wallachian and spending very little time in Transylvania.
― Anonymous User 12/21/2005
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More accurately, Vlad III; Dracule meant "Son of the Dragon", added because his father belonged to the Order of the Dragon. He also carried the apellation "Tepec" (pronounced Tshepesh) which means Impaler.
Actually, Vlad's last name was Dracula. His father's last name, Dracul, means "the devil", not "the dragon". Trust me, I'm Romanian. Drac means "devil", and dracul means "the devil".