To begin with, there is the question of nomenclature. The name "Dracula" has links with the Romanian word "drac" (derived from the Latin "draco") which can mean both "dragon" and "devil." The general consensus among historians now is that Vlad adopted it as a sobriquet derived from the Order of the Dragon which had been bestowed upon his father, Vlad Dracul, in 1431. (There is no evidence, however, that Stoker would have been aware of this connection.) Romanian historians have traditionally resisted referring to Vlad as "Dracula" for two reasons: it was used in late fifteenth¬century German documents which maligned the voivode's reputation, and it reinforces the connection to Stoker's vampire Count. However, the name "Dracula" is now being more widely accepted. As Florescu and McNally point out, this is justifiable: Vlad himself used "Dracula" (or variations thereof) in a number of documents bearing his signature, and several of the printed sources of information about Vlad, published in the late fifteenth century, refer to him as "Dracula" or one of its derivatives.