Dracula: The Terrifying Truth (infoplease.com)According to this article, Vlad, or Dracula, was born in 1431 in Transylvania into a noble family. His father was called "Dracul," meaning "dragon" or "devil" in Romanian because he belonged to the Order of the Dragon, which fought the Muslim Ottoman Empire. "Dracula" means "son of Dracul" in Romanian. Therefore young Vlad was "son of the dragon" or "son of the devil."