by Victor Foia
Ahi: Anatolian beylik disputed between the Ottoman and Karamanids
Akhal-Teke: A horse breed from Turkmenistan
Al-Andalus: The territory of today’s Spain and Portugal; once near entirely in the hands of the Muslim
Al-Fattāḥ: Arabic for “The Victory Giver”; one of Allah’s 99 names
Al-Ghaffār: Arabic for “The Repeatedly Forgiving”; one of Allah’s 99 names
Al-Haqq: Arabic for “The Truth”; one of Allah’s 99 names
Al-Ḥasīb: Arabic for “The Bringer of Judgment”; one of Allah’s 99 names
Al-Karīm: Arabic for “The Generous”; one of Allah’s 99 names
Al-Masudi: Sheik of the Bektashi lodge in Bursa
Al-Mu’min: Arabic for “The Granter of Security”; one of Allah’s 99 names
Al-Muḥyīy: Arabic for “The Giver of Life”; one of Allah’s 99 names
Al-Mujīb: Arabic for “The one Who Answers”; one of Allah’s 99 names
Al-Mumīt: Arabic for “The Creator of Death”, “The Destroyer”; one of Allah’s 99 names
Al-Muntaqim: Arabic for “The Avenger”; one of Allah’s 99 names
Al-Qahhār: Arabic for “the Subduer”; one of Allah’s 99 names
Al-Wahhāb: Arabic for “the Bestower”; one of Allah’s 99 names
Al-Wājid: Arabic for “The Finder”; one of Allah’s 99 names
Al-Wakil: Arabic for “The Trustee”; one of Allah’s 99 names
Aladdin (b. 1425 AD – ***): Sultan Murad’s oldest living son; Mehmed’s older brother; governor of Eastern Anatolia with the seat of government in Amasya (see Houses of Dracula Chronicles)
Alba Clan: Wealthy family of Wallachian boyars (see Houses of Dracula Chronicles)
Alba, Dan (b. 1401AD – ***): Head of the Alba Clan in the time of Dracula; treasurer at the court of King Dracul (see Houses of Dracula Chronicles)
Alba, Esmeralda (b. 1427AD – ***): Dan and Helena Alba’s daughter (see Houses of Dracula Chronicles)
Alba, Helena (b. 1403AD – ***): Dan Alba’s wife; Esmeralda’s mother (see Houses of Dracula Chronicles)
Alba, Julius (b. 1420 AD – ***): Peter Alba’s son (see Houses of Dracula Chronicles)
Alexander: Alexander of Macedon; also known as “Alexander the Great”; King of Macedonia
Ali (full name, Ali ibn Abi Talib): Prophet Mohammed’s son-n-law; the fourth caliph; assassinated in 661 AD; considered in Shia Islam as the prophet’s rightful successor
Amasya: Town in Anatolia
Ameses Castriota: Skanderbeg’s nephew
Anatolia: The Asia Minor zone of the Ottoman Empire; region corresponding roughly to the Asia Minor part of modern Turkey (see Maps of Dracula Chronicles)
Ankara: Town in Anatolia
Aq Qoyunlu: The Black Sheep, a Turcoman federation spreading over parts of Eastern Anatolia and Iran
Arcadicus: Abbot of Theotókos Monastery; monk who spotted the Akinci raiders near Adela’s Twins (Book One)
Aristotle: Greek philosopher
Athos: Also known as “Holy Mount Athos”; peninsula in northern Greece; host to a large number of Orthodox monasteries (see Maps of Dracula Chronicles)
Atilla: a.k.a. Atilla the Hun, head of the Hunnic Empire
Azmir: Janissary in Bursa assisting Omar in his secret plot against the enemies of jihad
Basarab: Royal Wallachian Dynasty (see Houses of Dracula Chronicles)
Benedetto Cotrugli: Ragusan merchant, economist, scientist, diplomat and humanist
Beyazid: Ottoman sultan; nicknamed “Yıldırım”, meaning “the Thunderbolt”
Bianca Pia, Loredano (b. 1430 AD – ***): Donatella Loredano’s daughter
Bitola: Town in Macedonia; on Vlad’s route to Ragusa
Black Drin River: River in Albania
Black Sea: Body of water situated southeast of Wallachia (see Maps of Dracula Chronicles)
Boruele Grimaldi (b. 1380 AD – ***): Podestà of Galata; Bianca Loredano’s uncle, Donatella Loredano’s brother-in-law (see Glossary for podestà)
Bosphorus: Alternate spelling “Bosporus”; narrow waterway draining the Black Sea into the Sea of Marmara; separates Europe from Asia Minor (see Maps of Dracula Chronicles)
Brankovich, George (b. 1377 AD – ***): Original name “Đurađ Branković”; King of Serbia (see Houses of Dracula Chronicles)
Bucur’s [boo-kuhr’s] Crossing: Hamlet on the Baragan Plain, southeast of Târgoviște; located at the crossroads of commercial roads; today’s Bucharest (see Maps of Dracula Chronicles)
Buda: Fortress town situated on the Danube River; capital of the Kingdom of Hungary
Bursa: City in Anatolia; the first capital of the Ottoman Empire
Byzantine Empire: Empire established on the foundation of the Eastern Roman Empire with the capital at Constantinople
Ca’ Loredano: Donatella Loredano’s Venetian-style palace in Constantinople (see Glossary for Ca’)
Caesar: Julius Caesar; Roman statesman, general, dictator
Captain Throatcut: Leader of a gang of robbers in Constantinople who attacked Mehmed and Vlad
Constantinople: Capital of Byzantium; capital of the Eastern Roman Empire; capital of the Latin Empire; seat of the Orthodox Ecumenical Patriarch
Crimea: See Crimean Peninsula
Crimean Peninsula: Peninsula on the north shore of the Black Sea (see Maps of Dracula Chronicles)
Cyril: Monk at Theotókos Monastery on Athos
Dan: See Alba, Dan
Danube: Europe’s second-longest river; it originates in the Black Forest, Germany, and drains into the Black Sea through a delta (see Maps of Dracula Chronicles)
Dar al-Harb: See Glossary
Dar al-Islam: See Glossary
Dar al-Sulh: See Glossary
Dardanelles: Narrow waterway draining the Sea of Marmara into the Aegean Sea; it separates Europe from Asia Minor (see Maps of Dracula Chronicles)
Darius: Darius III; the last king of the Achaemenid Empire of Persia
Debar: Town in western Macedonia
Demir: Chief Eunuch on She-Devil’s Island
Dhu al-Qi’dah: Eleventh month in the Islamic calendar
Donatella Loredano (b. 1416 AD - ***): Venetian lady residing in Constantinople; Bianca Donatella’s mother; Giovanni Grimaldi’s widow
Dracul [dráh-kool] (b. 1398 AD – ***): Original name “Vlad”; King of Wallachia as Vlad II; Dracula’s father (see Glossary for the meaning of the name)
Dracula [drah-kool-ah] (b. 1428 AD – ***): Son of Dracul (see Glossary for the derivation of the name); King of Wallachia as Vlad III, the Impaler
Drin River: River in Albania
Edessa: Town in Macedonia; on Vlad’s route to Ragusa
Edirne: Formerly “Adrianople”; capital of the Ottoman Empire in the time of Dracula (see Maps of Dracula Chronicles)
Eflâk: Ottoman name for Wallachia
Emirzade: Persian for “son of the emir”; equivalent with “son the the king”
Emirzade al-Tabrizı: Emirzade of Tabriz; name assumed by Vlad with Kasim ibn Jihangir, the Karaman prisoner in the Macedon Tower (Book Two)
Enver Pasha: Mehmed war logistics teacher
Eretna: Anatolian beylik disputed between the Ottoman and Karamanids
Esmeralda: See Alba, Esmeralda
Eşref: Anatolian beylik disputed between the Ottoman and Karamanids
Fazullah: Second Vizier at the court of Sultan Murad II; member of the Imperial Council
Galata: Also known as “Pera”; Genovese colony on the north shore of the Golden Horn (see Maps of Dracula Chronicles)
Foscari: Doge of Venice from 1423 to 1457 AD
Gaugamela: Place of a decisive battle in Asia Minor between Alexander the Great and Darius III
Genova: English Genoa; city-state in Liguria (Italy), on the Tyrrhenian Sea; one of the so-called “Maritime Republics” (Repubbliche Marinare), along with Venice, Pisa, and Amalfi at the time of the story
Genovese: C
itizens of Genova
George Castriota: One form of Skanderbeg’s Albanian name
Genghis Kahn: Founder of the Mongol Empire
Germiyan: Anatolian beylik disputed between the Ottoman and Karamanids
Gesta Francorum: Latin chronicle of the First Crusade written in circa 1100-1101 by an anonymous author
Gökdere: Stream in Bursa
Grimaldi: See Giovanni and Boruele Grimaldi
Gruya [grew-ya]: See Novak, Gruya
Gulf of Izmit: Anatolian gulf on the Sea of Marmara
Gunther (b. 1380 AD – d. 1442 AD): Christian slave escaped from the Ottoman Empire; Vlad’s tutor in things Ottoman; Vlad’s teacher of Turkish, Persian, and Arabic
Gürani (b. 1410 AD – ***): Ahmed Gürani; Mehmed’s tutor in Bursa
Hagia Sophia: Church of Holy Wisdom in Constantinople; Greek Orthodox patriarchal basilica; largest Christian church in the world at the time of the story
Hajji Bektash: Humanist and philosopher from Anatolia; founder of the Bektashi Sufi brotherhood in the 13th century AD
Hajji Mustafa: Edirne merchant who lent Omar money for his raid into Wallachia
Hamid: Anatolian beylik disputed between the Ottoman and Karamanids
Hamil al-Qur’an: Title given to a person who has memorized the Qur’an
Hamza (b. 1422 AD – ***): Mehmed’s slave, bodyguard, friend
Hannibal: Carthaginian general
Hector: Son of King Priam of Troy
Helena: See Alba, Helena
Hızır Pasha: Aladdin’s lala
Holy See: Episcopal see of the Pope; holds the Vatican City enclave n Rome as sovereign territory
House of Basarab: Dynasty of Wallachian kings or voievodes (see Houses of Dracula Chronicles)
Hungary: Danubian kingdom located on the Pannonian Plain; capital at Buda
Hunyadi [hoon-ya-deeh] Clan: Hungarian lower nobility family (see Houses of Dracula Chronicles)
Hunyadi [hoon-ya-deeh], John or Janko [yáhn- koh] (b. 1405 AD – ***): Governor of Transylvania; Captain General of the Kingdom of Hungary (see Houses of Dracula Chronicles)
Hurufism: Kabbalistic Sufi doctrine; form hurufi, meaning “letters of the alphabet”
İbrahim Bey (b. 1388 AD – d. 1465 AD): The Bey of Karaman; Murad’s brother-in-law
İbrahim: Arabic for “Abraham”
İğnesinin Gözü: Turkish for “The Eye of the Needle”; mountain pass encountered by Mehmed’s party on its way to Lake Beyşehir
Illarion: Mount Athos monk
Irgandı Bridge: Bridge over Gökdere Stream in Bursa
Ismail (b. 1422 AD – ***): Tirendaz’s slave; personal secretary
Jalāl: Sheik al-Masudi’s khalīfa at the Bektashi lodge (tekke) in Bursa; for the meaning of khalīfa, see the Glossary
Jibra’il: Gabriel, the angel who revealed the Qur’an to Prophet Mohammed
Julius: See Alba, Julius
Justus (b. 1353 AD – d. 1418 AD): King of Wallachia; original name “Mircea” [meer-cha]; also known as, “Mircea the Elder”; King Dracul’s father; Dracula’s grandfather (see Houses of Dracula Chronicles)
Kalimakos: Theotókos Monastery monk on Athos Peninsula
Kalıcı Cihad: Ottoman Turkish for “Permanent Jihād”; name of secret society seeking permanent war against Dar an-Harb
Karaman: An Islamic province (beylik) neighboring the Ottoman Empire on its southern Anatolian border (see Maps of Dracula Chronicles); long-term foe of the Ottomans
Karamanid: An inhabitant of Karaman
Kasim ibn Jihangir (b. 1425 AD – ***): Grandson of İbrahim Bey; former prisoner in the Edirne Macedon Tower
Katharina (b. 1435 AD – ***): Saxon girl from Kronstadt; Thomas and Elsa Siegel’s daughter
Kayhan: District of Bursa
Khalil Pasha (b. 1404 AD – ***): Family name “Çandarlı”; Grand Vizier at the court of Murad II; member of the Imperial Council
Kilia [key-lee-yah]: Wallachian outpost near the Black Sea in the Danube Delta
King Justus: See Justus
King Norbert (b. 1424 AD – ***): Original name Władysław; King of Poland from 1434 AD; also King of Hungary from 1440 AD
King Priam: King of Troy in Homer’s Iliad
King Zal: Persian king; father to Rostam; character in Shahnameh
Konya: Capital of Karaman
Kronstadt: Brasov in Romanian; fortress town in Transylvania (see Maps of Dracula Chronicles)
Kütahya: Town in Anatolia
Lake Beyşehir: Lake in Anatolia
Lake Ohrid: Lake in Albania
Lala Hızır: See Hızır Pasha
Lala Mustafa: A Murad retainer in Bursa; here the title of “lala” is honorific
Lash (b. 1424 AD – ***): Dracula’s Gypsy manservant
Loredano: See Donatella, and Bianca Loredano
Lybissa: Town in Anatolia
Macedon Tower: Tower in Edirne used as temporary prison
Mahmud Bey: Sultan Murad’s son in law; the Grand Vizier Khalil Pasha’s brother.
Mameluk: Ruling military caste in medieval Egypt that rose from the ranks of slave soldiers who were mainly of Kipchak Turk, Circassian, and Georgian origin
Mara Brankovich (b. 1416 AD – ***): One of Murad’s four wives; King George Brankovich’s daughter; Gregory and Stefan Brankovich’s sister (see Houses of Dracula Chronicles)
Marcus (b. 1426 AD – ***): Original name “Mircea” [meer-cha]; King Dracul’s oldest son; Dracula’s older stepbrother (see Houses of Dracula Chronicles)
Marmara: See Sea of Marmara
Mathilda: See Novak, Mathilda
Mecca: Holiest city in Islam; located on the Arabian Peninsula
Mehmed (b. 1432 AD – ***): Sultan Murad’s youngest living son; governor of Western Anatolia with the seat of government in Manisa (see Houses of Dracula Chronicles); Aladdin’s younger brother
Mesut: Akinci youth near the Albanian border
Methodius: Monk at Theotókos Monastery on Athos
Mevlana: A Persian poet and Sufi mystic also known as Rumi; founder of the Mevlevi Sufi order, whose members are known as “whirling dervishes”
Mevlevi: A member of a Sufi order founded by the Persian poet and Sufi mystic Rumi
Meydancik: District in Bursa
Michael: See Novak, Michael
Moldova: See World of Dracula Chronicles; see Maps of Dracula Chronicles
Mullah Gürani: See Gürani
Murad (b. 1404 AD – ***): Ottoman Sultan during Dracula’s youth; known as “Murad II”; Aladdin’s and Mehmed’s father (see Houses of Dracula Chronicles)
Murad Khan: Title born by Murad I of House Osman; the title of “sultan” was adopted later
Muradiye Complex: Complex of mosque, türbe, imaret, and madrasah established outside Bursa by Murad II; his place of burial
Mustafa: Janissary in Bursa who escorted Omar from the cemetery
Negroponte: The Venetian name for the Greek island of Euboea in the 15th century
Nestor (b. 1420 AD – ***): Original name “Vladislav” [Vláhd-y-slahv]; nicknamed “the Usurper”; Wallachian prince from the House of Basarab; Dracula’s second cousin (see Houses of Dracula Chronicles)
Nicopolis: Fortress town on the right bank of the Danube River; site of the last Crusade before Dracula’s time (see Maps of Dracula Chronicles)
Niš: Town in Serbia
Norbert: See King Norbert
Novak Clan: Wallachian boyar house (see Houses of Dracula Chronicles)
Novak, Baba [báh-bah] (b. 1402 – ***): Wallachian boyar; King Dracul’s sword-bearer; member of King Dracul’s Royal and Small Councils; Michael Novak’s son; Gruya Novak’s father (see Houses of Dracula Chronicles)
Novak, Gruya [grew-ya] (b. 1426 AD – ***): Dracula’s squire; Baba Novak’s son; Michael Novak’s grandson (see Houses of Dracula Chronicles)
Novak, Mathilda (b. 1382 AD – d. 1442) Michael Novak’s wife; Baba Novak’s mother; Gruya Novak’s grandmother
; Dracula’s governess (see Houses of Dracula Chronicles)
Novak, Michael (b. 1380 AD – ***): Wallachian boyar; chancellor at the court of King Dracul; member of King Dracul’s Royal and Small Councils; Baba Novak’s father; Gruya Novak’s grandfather; Dracula’s mentor (see Houses of Dracula Chronicles)
Nûḥ ibn Lamech: Noah
Oma: German for “grandmother”; Dracula picked up the habit of using this term as a child in the Saxon town of his birth, Schassburg
Omar Amasyalı (b. 1407 AD – ***): Omar of Amasya; Akinci raider; Redjaï, Sezaï, and Zekaï’s oldest brother
Oracle of Ammon: Oracle in the Libyan desert; Alexander the Great visited this oracle with the intention of discovering his divine origins
Ordu Alan: Turkish for “Army Field”
Orhan Ghazi: Second Ottoman ruler
Osman Gazi: Founder of the Ottoman Dynasty
Osman Ghazi Khan: Title of the first Ottoman ruler; the title of sultan was adopted in the second half of the fourteenth century
Ottoman Empire: Turkish empire founded by Osman in early 14th century; began in Anatolia and spread to Europe, Middle East, and northern Africa; lasted until early 20th century (see Houses of Dracula Chronicles)
Paola: Donatella Loredano’s nurse, governess, head chambermaid
Paris: Son of King Priam of Troy
Persia: Territory covering parts of today’s Iran, Afghanistan, and Iraq
Pope Eugene: Eugene IV, pope during Dracula’s youth
Rabb: Arabic word meaning Lord, Sustainer, Cherisher, Master, Nourisher; in Islam, Ar-Rabb is often used to address Allah, although Ar-Rabb is not one of the 99 names (or attributes) of Allah
Ragusa: Independent maritime republic on the Adriatic Sea; today Dubrovnik, Croatia
Redjaï (b. 1413 AD – d. 1442 AD): Akinci raider; Omar’s brother
Resen: Town in Macedonia; on Vlad’s route to Ragusa
Rostam: Character in the Persian epic poem Shahnameh, the Book of Kings; national Persian hero; King Zal’s son
Rumelia: The European zone of the Ottoman Empire; region corresponding to parts of current Bulgaria, Serbia, and Northern Greece (see Maps of Dracula Chronicles)
Sadeddin Hoja: Kadıasker, or Chief Judge, of the Ottoman Empire; member of the Imperial Council (see Glossary for Kadıasker)
Sâhib Ata: Anatolian beylik disputed between the Ottoman and Karamanids
Samur: Turkish for “sable”; Akhal-Teke horse Mehmed gave Vlad as a gift
