Sayaka Nakaya is a Japanese voice actress and former idol singer, born on October 15, 1991, in Iwate Prefecture, Japan. Her career is notable for its transition from being a member of the massively popular idol group AKB48 to establishing herself as a professional voice actress.

Nakaya's entertainment career began in 2006 when she passed the audition for AKB48's third generation, becoming one of only twenty successful candidates out of over twelve thousand applicants. She made her debut on the AKB48 stage in April 2007 as part of Team B and later transferred to Team A. During her time with AKB48, she was known as one of the group's anime enthusiasts and was selected to be part of the voice cast for the anime series AKB0048, which featured AKB48 members as voice actors. For this role, she voiced Orine Aida and joined the special unit No Name, which performed the series' theme songs. In 2013, Nakaya made the pivotal decision to graduate from AKB48 to focus on a career in voice acting.

Following her departure from AKB48, Nakaya joined the talent agency Amuleto to pursue voice acting full-time. She has since built a diverse portfolio of roles across anime, video games, and narration. Among her notable anime roles are Ayano Hōjō in Moshidora, the energetic elementary schooler Chitose Sakuraba in Chitose Get You!!, Hana Kazuki in Chaos;Child and its sequel Silent Sky, and Kate in the aerial combat series The Magnificent Kotobuki, including its sequel Kōya no Kotobuki Hikōtai Gaiden: Ōzora no Harukaze Hikōtai. Other significant roles include Orine Aida in AKB0048 and AKB0048 Next Stage, Kaname Makishi in Triage X, Somera Nonomoto in Magical Somera-chan, Yuzuki Shimada in Momokuri, and Ruru in Kiznaiver. Her work also extends to video games, with roles such as Tess Heitzmann in Atelier Sophie and Mina Nishizawa in Hyperdimension Neptunia Mk2. In addition to character roles, she has performed theme songs for series like HappinessCharge PreCure! and Magical Somera-chan.

Throughout her career, Nakaya has achieved several notable accomplishments. While still a member of AKB48, her narration for the audiobook of Moshidora won the Audio Book Award in 2010. She later voiced the same character, Ayano Hōjō, in the anime adaptation of the story. Her work as part of the No Name unit from AKB0048 was also commercially successful, with their singles charting well on the Oricon weekly charts. Nakaya has been affiliated with several talent agencies throughout her career, including Amuleto and, as of 2022, Michelle Entertainment.