Vlad the Impaler was born in 1431
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My youth found me enthralled by monsters and such and Dracula was one of those so — once I found out a little about him — Vlad naturally became an interest of mine over the years.
He was the second son of Vlad Draculis and is remembered as a brutal proponent of independence from the Turks — ruthless with all including enemies and his countrymen alike who did not live their lives according to his strict standards of morality.
His signature punishment was "impaling" where a sharpened wooden pole was used to suspend the victim above the ground typically causing death and great suffering prior to that moment.
He was called 'Dracula' because his father, Vlad II was a member of the Order of the Dragon which was a chivalric order created to defend Christendom against the Ottoman Turks whereby he became known as "Dracul" (or Dragon).
Dracula meant "son of Dracul" in medieval Romanian hence the name through out history. Modern Romanian maintains that the word for "devil" is "drac" and this became part and parcel of that association with the fictional vampire of literature.
It took me a long time to finally differentiate between the actual man from history and the fictional character from Bram Stoker's novel.