The suffix io-ia is also used to form action names or toponyms, implying that the meaning of Amaya or Amaia is "mother city", as it will be called later, "the capital".
Amaya was one of the main villages of the Cantabri Celtic tribes, and played a key role in the Cantabrian wars during the Roman conquest of Hispania, and later, during the Visigothic Kingdom, as the capital of the Duchy of Cantabria.
In the first stages of the Reconquista, the city was part of the repopulating efforts of the Kingdom of Asturias in the border region of Bardulia, the primitive territories of Castile.
It became popular in the Basque area after the 1877 novel Amaya o los vascos en el siglo VIII.
[5] A Japanese surname Amaya of unrelated origin also exists, "usually written with characters meaning 'heavenly valley'".