When we submerse ourselves in everything that’s vampire related, we often find that the words “vampire” and “vampyre” are used interchangeably. But are these two things really one in the same? And if so, why the different spellings? I know that the very idea of vampires lends itself to interpretations of many different kinds but, are we really reinventing the English language here? No. There is actually a very clear distinction between the two and we thought that here, we’d break it down for you.

Quite simply, vampires are fictional. They are human corpses that have become reanimated and perhaps even dug themselves out of a grave. Vampires are also usually pretty scary because they’re really only concerned with killing other humans for blood. Edward Cullen, Sookie Stackhouse, and Elena Gilbert are some of our most favorite vampires. However, they are not real.

Vampyres, on the other hand, are very real and even walk among us on earth. Vampyres are individuals that believe that they have a real physical condition that requires them to drink blood at regular intervals. Whether that blood comes from a human or an animal is usually up to the vampyre and their close circle of friends. Some vampyres also use energy to feed off instead of actual blood. Unlike vampires, however, they are usually not reanimated and haven’t had to dig themselves out of any graves before they were able to walk around unnoticed. Seregon O’Dassey, Lady CG, and many of you are some of our most favorite vampyres!

So while you might find that ‘vampire’ and ‘vampyre’ are often used to mean one and the same thing, you now know differently.
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