Around the end of his life he began using the style "by the grace of God" (gratia Dei), recorded for the first time written in legal documents after 1072.
[4] Íñigo's origins are obscure, but he may have been a son of Lope Velázquez de Ayala, a lord in Álava, Cantabria and nearby parts of Biscay.
[5] His father-in-law and García Sánchez both died in the Battle of Atapuerca in 1054 and Íñigo may have succeeded the former as tenente (lord "holding" the government on behalf of the king) in Nájera.
[6] In 1051, when García Sánchez granted fueros to Biscay, he officially associated Íñigo with him in the decree, as the head of the local aristocracy (omnes milites), recognising the rights and privileges of the monasteries.
In the surviving text of the fuero given to Nájera that year Íñigo's eldest son, Lope, appears swearing fealty to Alfonso, but he is not recorded in documents as count in Biscay until 1079.