I saw a documentary where they speculated that Stoker used the name Dracula but the stories about a Transylvanian lesbian noblewoman who would drink and bathe in the blood of young virgins because she believed it would make her younger. Truly sick stuff.
That was Erzebeth (elizabeth) Nadazdy a 16th Century noblewoman in the Austro-Hungarian region.
I saw the same show on the History Channel the other night.