As far as taxonomy of the orchid family is concerned, Pleurothallinidae is the largest "haystack" containing well over three thousand species names. The most frequently cultivated representatives of this huge complex belong in the genus Masdevallia coined by H. Ruiz and J. Pavón in honour of Dr. José Masdeval, a XVIIIth century Spanish physician and botanist.

   By time the number of orchid species names stuffed into this genus approached some three hundred. Such a huge group is getting barely manageable, especilly if it is plagued with gross synonymy as well as inhomogenity cused by taxonomists in the lack of some other, reasonable choice or, just with a Jovial abandon, placing all sorts of rather different orchids into the existing Masdevallia genus.

   During revising these orchids, in 1978 Dr. Carlyle Luer elected to coin a distinct group and transfer them into the Dracula genus erected anew for this very purpose.

   For those of versed at least in the basics of botanical Latin, the first meaning of this word in English is "little dragon" - widely used by professional orchidologists and amateur orchid hobbyists alike.

   Although the first, original meaning of the Greek draco is snake, by time it became virtually superseded by its second meaning dragon, as this word is understood by most people today.
   So far so good... But trouble strikes when one meets Dracula vampira (Luer) Luer (1978.), let alone Dracula vlad-tepes Luer et R. Escobar (1981.)

   According to his own recollections, when first using the Dracula generic name Dr. Luer had both the small dragon and the whole Count Dracula concept as featured by Stoker's horror novel in mind.

   In Bram Stoker's novel the writer kneaded two historical figures into his "Count Dracula" figure - who, in reality, were a father and his son; the somewhat more apt form should be "Count Dracu Jr."

   Because the father, Vlad The First was the one who earned the "Dracu" epitethon ornans (decorative epithet, which in his very case - would you believe? - can be considered a honour, a distinction!), while Stoker's novel refers to the son, who also had an epiteth attached to his name, but he was not called "Dracula".

   "Vlad" means "Wallachian" in English (vide Marina Vlady, the movie star or Joe Wallachi of Cosa Nostra fame). Wallachians are the Romanians inhabiting the area known as Moldavia (currently a part of it belongs to Ukraine) and the Lower Danube River Valley south of the Eastern Carpathian Mountains, eastward from the Olt River (a tributary of the Danube), all the way to the Danube delta.

   The Lower Danube River Valley is called in Hungarian as "Havasalföld" ("Snowy Lowland", referring to the Souteast range of the Carpathian Mountains) and also known as the Regát. (Corrupted form of the Latin regio, which here means "border area".) In Romanian it is called as Murtenia or Tara Rominesca, i. e. that part of the present-day Romania which lies outside the Carpathian Basin.

   Vlad I and Vlad II were not Counts, but volvodes of that Murtenia, etc., etc. Specifically the son, to whom Stoker's novel refers, was the Vajda of Havasalföld in the period of 1456 - 62. (Vajda = volvode in English.)

  The exact standing of the volvodes we are concerned with here was "feoffe to the King of Hungary" (actually Mathias The First, Mathias Corvinus, 1443 - 90, King of Hungary between 1458 - 90, known also as Mathias The Just).

   Feoffes were elected rulers close to a vassal, feudatory, ally, Viceroy and/or a mixture of all of these. Within the boundaries of their own territory they had a sovereignty close to or even less limited than that of their supreme King's, had their own armies, etc. Essentially, they were rather Kings of an allied kingdom than mere bureaucrats running a colony's administration.

   The first half of the XVth Century was a period in which the Turkish Ottoman Empire aggressively expanded westward. Vlad I fought the Turks successfully and was able to keep them at bay. He was the one who became known as Vlad Dracu to his contemporaries.

   While depending on the way how one looks at these things, Vlad Dracu can be considered either a hero and/or a mental case. His son and successor, Vlad II, who became known to his contemporaries as Vlad Tepes was undoubtedly manifest, raving, stark mad sadist, definitely in the psychopathological, not just in the rather figurative sense as his father was apostrophised either as "Strict, fierce Protector" or "The Devil".

   In the word Tepes "T" stands for a phoneme for which non-Romanian printers usually do not have the proper character, featuring a minute pigtail. It would be better to use the "Çepes" orthography, because that could easily lead to the Latin capio, cepi, captum, which is the word from which the Romanian "Çepes" is derived.

  In a good Latin dictionary the meanings and uses of capio, cepi, captum run to pages and in the lack of knowing the de facto true historical background it is all too easy to miss the very one which applies in our case: here it means "impalement" i. e. Vlad "Çepes" means "Wallachian Impaler".

   In our present context the root of the Wallachian Dracu is indeed traceable to the Greek derkestai (= to see) > drakon > Latin draco > Old French (more exactly Provençal) dragon adopted as the English dragon.

   However, both the Wallachian Dracu and/or the Latin Draco mean not a mythical monster, but a fierce person, especially someone protecting something fiercely by overseeing, supervising.

   See the Greek Drakon personal name, which states this meaning in its pure form and also its derivatives, for example draconian measure, which also allude, refer to this character, temper, attitude, behaviour, i. e. something Vlad Dracu was especially (in)famous for.

   Nevertheless, there is a possibility that this is not the end of the story. Along the Turkish troops of the Ottoman Empire's wars also moved westward en masse a "new wave" of a nomadic ethnic group having its roots in the region bordering on the present-day Afghanistan, Pakistan and India - where they are called "Bedijah".

   This ethnic group considers itself to be the true, original, traditional, unspoilt Roma people (= Romany in English, a clear derivative of the Sanskrit Rom). Their maternal tongue is Romany, which language is indeed a derivative of the ancient Hindi languages.

   These Romanies, (beware, not Romanians yet!), who happened to be on the wrong side in the battles the Turks fought against Vlad The First might also be responsible for attaching the epiteth "Dracu" to the name of Vlad I. However, in certain Romany idioms the word Dracu means "The Devil". That is, Vlad Dracu may also mean "Vlad The Devil".

   Meandreing further: some Romany tribes/clans use the word Devla in the English "Devil" sense, evidently on the sinister consideration to make the issue even more confusing ...
Summary:
   as far as I know, while there are a few orchid generic names lifted from or traceable to Sanskrit (the most obvious example is Vanda, which was the Sanskrit name of a parasitic Loranthaceae species; W. Jones adopted it in 1795, when he described V. roxburghii), Dracula is the only generic name in the whole Orchidaceae which has either a Greek, Latin, sensu stricto Wallachian and/or a Romany root.

   Whatever is the case none of these alludes to little mythical monsters and the like ...

   Behind the specific name of Dracula chimaera (Rchb. f.) Luer (1978.) there is a famous mythological monster, the Khimaira of Lycia, the archetype of many dragon figures and legends.

Touch Khimaira if you dare!

   There are two churches in Romania in which Vlad Tepes was allegedly buried, however, the suspected tombs are empty, so far no trace attributable to this person could be found.

   Which fact did not prevent American scientists (???) applying recently for and securing a grant for attempting to prove by DNA analysis that Vlad Tepes suffered from hemophilia, that is why he was a vampire.

   In a sense, this is a horror story, too - throwing piles of money at absolutely rubbish grant applications, I mean.

Because

a/   Altough contemporary records relate, moreover, often even exaggerate the perversion of Vlad Tepes, no one never said that he was a "vampire" drinking the blood of his victims.

b/   I wonder from where an authentic DNA sample of Vlad Tepes will be secured for this (I dare to say that) perverted grant application, given the fact that the two alleged tombs of Vlad Tepes are empty ...