the Tamil written script indeed doesn't distinguish th and t or kh and k and indeed more sounds. However when they are spoken, especially by the more educated f

the Tamil written script indeed doesn't distinguish th and t or kh and k and indeed more sounds. However when they are spoken, especially by the more educated folks, they are pronounced differently from contextual knowledge. the contextual knowledge in this case is that both these names are actually from Sanskrit. When you write Sanskrit in Devnagari script, it does indeed distinguish and so the educated folks will pronounce it correctly being aware of this.