Ayala (Basque: Aiara) is a toponymic surname, originally de Ayala (of Ayala), deriving from the town of Ayala/Aiara in the province of Álava, in the Basque Country, northern Spain.
It is linguistically unrelated to the Hebrew female given name Ayala, which is of Biblical origin.
Arts and entertainment
Alexis Ayala (born 1965), American-born Mexican actor
Cristina Ayala (1856–1936), pen name of Cuban poet Maria Cristina Fragas
Francisco Ayala (novelist) (1906–2009), novelist
Joey Ayala (born 1956), Filipino musician
Josefa de Ayala ( – 1684), Spanish-born Portuguese painter
Pedro Ayala (1911–1990), American accordionist
Ramon Ayala (accordion player), (born 1928) Mexican accordion player
Ramón Ayala (Argentine musician), (born 1937) Argentine singer and poet
Ramón Ayala Rodríguez (born 1976), Puerto Rican musician known as Daddy Yankee
Vanessa Ayala, Colombian-American artist
Violeta Ayala (born 1978), filmmaker and writer
Politics
Eligio Ayala (1879–1930), President of Paraguay 1923–1924
Eusebio Ayala (1875–1942), President of Paraguay 1921–1923
Inés Ayala (born 1957), Spanish politician
Paulina Ayala (born 1962), Canadian politician
Sports
Bobby Ayala (born 1969), Major League pitcher
Celso Ayala (born 1970), Paraguayan soccer player
Daniel Sánchez Ayala (born 1990), Spanish soccer player
Diego Ayala (footballer) (born 1990), Paraguayan footballer
Diego Ayala (tennis) (born 1979), American tennis player
Eric Ayala (born 1999), Puerto Rican basketball player
Hercules Ayala (1950–2020), Puerto Rican wrestler
Josué Ayala (born 1988), Argentine footballer
Lucas Ayala (born 1978), Argentine footballer
Luis Ayala (baseball) (born 1978), American-Mexican baseball pitcher
Luis Ayala (tennis) (born 1932), Chilean professional tennis player
Paulie Ayala (born 1970), Mexican-American former boxer
Ramón Ayala (judoka), (born 1979) Puerto Rican judoka
Roberto Ayala (born 1973), Argentine international footballer
Rubén Ayala (born 1950), Argentine retired footballer
Tony Ayala Jr. (1963–2015), former middleweight boxer
Other
Aramis Ayala (born 1975), American attorney
Carlos Ayala Vargas (born 1980), leader of the Spanish Pirate Party
Francisco J. Ayala (1934–2023), Spanish-American biologist and philosopher
See also
De Ayala, another surname
Ayala (disambiguation)