Talk:Thangam Debbonaire

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Father's place of birth dispute[edit]

Trying to get to the bottom of the micro edit war about Debbonaire father's place of birth and ethnic origin, I've done some google research and found the following claims and sources:

  • "father is a Sri Lankan Tamil" - the current cite "The Sunday Times, Sri Lanka" [1]
  • "my paternal grandfather was an engineer in India" - interview with Debbonaire in non-WP:RS Culture Matters Bristol blog [2]
  • "my own family in India" - interview with Debbonaire in Bristol Post [3]

Any additional useful quotes most welcome.

The only one that mention Tamil is the Sri Lanka Sunday Times, and that clearly says "Sri Lankan Tamil". So, in the absence of further sources, I think we have two options:

  1. go back to "Sri Lankan Tamil father" which has a clear source
  2. say something less specific like "a father of Indian/Sri Lankan family origin"

Views? I'm inclined to the second choice given the sparsity of sources saying the same thing. Rwendland (talk) 14:27, 27 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Name[edit]

Why is she 'Thangam Debbonaire' if she was born Singh and married a Kevin Walton? If she was married before maybe it would be worth noting, as otherwise it doesn't explain her name in an biographical article, which is somewhat unencyclopaedic; additionally, who is the 'Emilie Debbonaire' mentioned as a co-author with Debbonaire and her husband? A daughter? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.109.200.247 (talk) 15:54, 22 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

It all seems a bit murky. I had originally assumed that it was her English mother's maiden name, but it turns out that that was Parker. She has two sisters, and she refers to Emilie as her "sister-in-law," so with no brothers, that can only mean that Emilie is her husband's sister. In this Commons debate she refers to a neice, "Aliyah Debbonaire," and a daughter of hers given "Emilie" as a middle name; these appear to be Emilie's daughter and granddaughter respectively.
Given that there seem to be only six adults in the country with the "Debbonaire" surname, and looking at other publicly-available records, I suspect that her husband Kevin Walton's surname is actually Debbonaire, but he has chosen to use his mother's maiden name for professional purposes. Unfortunately, I can find no reliable sources to confirm this, so it remains speculation. Nick Cooper (talk) 16:27, 5 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
I was wanting an answer to the same question.--Jack Upland (talk) 02:48, 8 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]