Another way would be to deem the pick to be the older celeb of that name.
We could allow for either age or celebrity status to be the determining factor and trust the Death Mistress to make a fair ruling on a case by case basis. This could prevent absurd situations, ie a regional celebrity the player is unlikely to have known of dies and they get the points because that person was older than the megastar of the same name.
Also helpful to have the age option in a Barbara Bush situation, where someone could try to argue a former first daughter was equally well known as a former first lady (I know the elder BB has already surrendered her points and moved into the after-game, but it’s an easy example). If the younger BB had died first, it wouldn’t be unreasonable to assess an ambiguous pick as being for the elderly BB.
There’s also an argument to be made that everyone has the opportunity to provide enough information upfront to make the identity crystal clear, and in the event that they’ve made an ambiguous pick… No points.
Bobby Brown Jr was the younger and the lesser famous person by that name. Either way, he seems the less likely pick.
In this case I am denying the points. The person who died is Bobby Brown Jr. The person picked by Sweetpapalapa is Bobby Brown, assumed to be the elder, since no generational notation was added.
This does bear mentioning in the rules. I usually exhort people to check spelling, and this could come under that, or have a mention of it’s own.
Forty one people picked Alex Trebek, but when I searched that spelling I came up with thirty eight. The other three all had different spellings of his surname. But I knew who they meant, so those others got their points.
And this is a good time to mention…ELEVEN DAYS UNTIL YOU CAN START PICKING FOR 2021!!!