title: Dayan (surname)
text: # Dayan (surname)
  
  Dayan (דיין‎) is a Hebrew surname. It means a Jewish religious judge in a Beth din—a position conferring social prestige in a traditional Jewish community, and therefore one whose memory is likely to be retained as a family's surname even after the passage of many generations.
  
  Notable persons with the surname include:
  
  * Shmuel Dayan (1891–1968), Zionist activist and Israeli politician (father of Moshe)
     * Moshe Dayan (1915–1981), Israeli military leader and politician
     * Ruth Dayan (1917–2021), widow of Moshe
        * Assi Dayan (1945–2014), Israeli film director, actor (son of Moshe)
        * Yael Dayan (born 1939), Israeli politician and author (daughter of Moshe)
        * Uzi Dayan (born 1948), Israeli general and politician (nephew of Moshe)
        * Dani Dayan (born 1955), Chairman of Yad Vashem (relative)
        * Ilana Dayan (born 1964), Israeli investigative journalist, jurist and anchorwoman (relative)
  * Charles Dayan (1792–1877), American lawyer and politician
  * Charles Dayan (real estate developer) (born 1941), American real estate developer
  * Colin Dayan, American professor
  * Daniel Dayan (born 1943), social scientist
  * David Ben Dayan (born 1978), Israeli football player
  * Haim Dayan (born 1960), Israeli politician
  * Michele Dayan (born 1961), Israeli football player and manager
  * Peter Dayan, neuroscience scholar
  * Rebecca Dayan, French-American actress and model
  * Roei Dayan (born 1984), Israeli football player
  * Yosef Dayan (born 1945), Israeli political activist
  
  Notable persons with the given name Dayan (not always linguistically related) include:
  
  * Dayán Viciedo (born 1989), Cuban baseball player
  * David Dayan Fisher, British actor
  * Dayan Jayatilleka, Sri Lankan Sinhalese academic, diplomat, politician, writer; he was named after Moshe Dayan
  