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Vladislaus Drakulya (Vlad the third of Wallachia) was a real person. He was not actually a count. He was a prince. He was born in 1431 and died in 1476 roughly around the age of forty five. Wallachia is a region of Romania directly under Transylvania (the region where he was born). Though he did not really become a vampire the implication in the fictional Dracula novel by Bram Stoker (published in 1897) is that the historical figure came back as a vampire.

The name Dracula comes from Dracul which is derived from the Latin Draco (meaning dragon). In modern Romanian Dracul means Devil but in the fifteenth century it meant dragon. Dracula's father was a member of the knightly order of the dragon and called himself Dracul (Dragon). The "A" at the end of Dracula means that he is "the son of the dragon." Almost seventy five years after he died he was posthumously named Vlad Tepes (meaning The Impaler) because his favorite method of executing his enemies was to impale them on long spikes. He was never actually called "The impaler" or Tepes within his lifetime. He signed his name as Wladislaus Dragwlya (Angloized to Vladislaus Dracula).

Though turning the historical figure into a vampire is only the work of Bram Stoker's imagination, when anthropologists opened his place of burial in 1931 (the very year the Bela Lugosi Dracula film was made and exactly five hundred years after Dracula's birth) they found it empty.

According to The History channel the local people around the castle had, in recent years, heard strange noises and seen strange lights up in the castle so they sent some priests up to bless the place. Strangely as they neared the castle a terrible storm held them back so they had to do the blessing from a distance. Manipulating the weather is supposed to be one of the fictional vampire's powers.

Also Count would have been the "modern" (late nineteenth century) equivalent of ruling a small Principality territory, it would be a county.

Though the historical figure is not a vampire the vampiric fiction that the historical figure became a vampire isn't all bad, in many versions the character is sympathetic or even heroic like the 1992 movie starring Gary Oldman or the anime Hellsing (Okay, so he's kind of crazy in that one), Love at first bite, or Fred Saberhagen's Dracula books or the film Dracula: The Dark Prince where he's both the historical figure and the vampire but he's not evil incarnate but actually a very noble (though violent and hot tempered) character.

Google Vlad The Impaler

Vlad III Dracula, or Vlad the impaler, was a prince of Wallachia who was known for impaling political enemies on wooden beames. He died at the age of 45.

His real name was vladimir... I don't know his last name, but he was commey known as vlad the impaler. He was king? Duke? Some sort of royalty in europe... Around the 1000s he would impale his enemy's, and drain their blood into vials, so he could keep them. That's where the bloodsucking came from

Most people forget to mention That Vlad Dracula was also a Prince and that he was considered a Savior of Romania, because he prevented that Turks from taking over his country during their war with the Ottoman Empire........................................ Which he his most remembered for.....................

A fictitious movie character, and in-case you do not comprehend what fictitious means. It means MADE UP, NOT real.

I heard he was an actual prince in translyvannia, who was well known for killing people in gruesome ways.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vlad_the_impaler

and

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dracula