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).
She was born in the English Missionary Hospital in Isfahan on 22 June 1932. She had one sibling, a younger brother, Bijan (1937–2001). Her family had long been involved in the Iranian government and diplomatic corps.
