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:
Moshe Dayan (1915–1981), Israeli military leader and politician
Shmuel Dayan (1891–1968), Zionist activist and Israeli politician (father of Moshe)
Ruth Dayan (born 1917), 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)
Ilana Dayan (born 1964), Israeli investigative journalist, jurist and anchorwoman (relative)
Amalia Dayan, Owner of New York gallery Luxemburg and Dayan (daughter of Assi)
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
Peter Dayan, neuroscience scholar
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:
Dayan Khan (1464–1517), Mongol Khan
Dayán Viciedo (born 1989), Cuban baseball player
David Dayan Fisher, British actor
Dayan Jayatilleka, Sri Lankan Sinhala academic, diplomat, politician, writer; he was named after Moshe Dayan
