Bijan Esfandiary-Bakhtiari (1937 – 2001) was Soraya’s only brother.Khalil Esfandiary-Bakhtiary (1901 – 1983), was a politician and diplomat.Bakhtiary was homeland’s Ambassador to West Germany from 1952 to 1961. He was the father of Soraya Esfandiary-Bakhtiary, the second wife of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the last Shah.
Soraya was the elder child and only daughter of Khalil Esfandiary Bakhtiary (1901–1983), a Bakhtiari nobleman and Iranian ambassador to West Germany in the 1950s, and his Russian-born German wife Eva Karl (1906–1994).
