Name
Further information: House of DrăculeştiDuring his life Vlad wrote his name in Latin documents as Wladislaus Dragwlya, vaivoda partium Transalpinarum (1475).
His Romanian patronymic Dragwlya (or Dragkwlya) Dragulea, Dragolea, Drăculea is a diminutive of the epithet Dracul "the Dragon" carried by his father Vlad II, who in 1431 was inducted as a member of the Order of the Dragon, a chivalric order founded by Sigismund of Hungary in 1408. Dracul is the Romanian definite form, the -ul being the suffixal definite article (deriving from Latin ille). The noun drac "dragon" itself continues Latin draco. In Modern Romanian, the word drac has adopted the meaning of "devil" (the term for "dragon" now being balaur or dragon). This has led to misinterpretations of Vlad's epithet as characterizing him as "devilish".
Vlad's moniker of Țepeș ("Impaler") identifies his favourite method of execution. It was attached to his name posthumously, in ca. 1550.
Read more about this topic: Vlad The Impaler
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