Names of the Imperial Princes

For the Emperor, Zhou Yin, as well as the three surviving Imperial Princes, their names are based on Emperors from the Song Dynasty. Zhou Yin, the current Emperor, has the character "胤/Yin" as his given name. This character means "to succeed your forefathers", or "to inherit/to carry on the bloodline", and is taken from the name of the founder of the Song Dynasty, Zhou Kuangyin, posthumously given the title of Emperor Taizong. Meanwhile, the Third Prince's name "匡/Kuang" means "to rectify/to contain within", and is taken from the first character of Emperor Taizong's name, mostly because Taizong just had a pretty cool name. His posthumous title Taizong/太宗 refers to the fact that he's the founding emperor of the Song Dynasty, and he was known to be capable in war and politics. In this regard, Kuang is quite similar.

The Fifth Prince's name "昀祺/Yunqi" combines the characters "昀/Yun", or "sunlight", and "祺/Qi“ or "good luck/being lucky", taken from the names of Song Dynasty Emperor Zhou Yun and Zhou Qi, respectively known as Emperor Lizong/理宗 and Emperor Duzong/度宗. Lizong means "reasonable emperor" while Duzong means "measured emperor". While both of these emperors were ineffective rulers who focused on their own pleasure and could neither take care of internal affairs nor the external threat of the Mongols, their posthumous titles reflect Yunqi's personality rather accurately even if their actions do not.

The Seventh Prince's name "显淳/Xianchun" is actually not taken from the names of any of the Emperors, but rather their calendar era names. For a contemporary example of the East Asian usage of era names that accurately reflects how it was used in Ancient China, look at Japan, which transitioned from the Heisei to the Reiwa period in 2019. Several era names under various Song Dynasty Emperors contained the character 淳, which means "pure/honest", reflecting their desire to have a court and populace that's pure and honest of heart. Xianchun's name also reflects his father's desire for a son with these qualities.

 The late Fourth Prince and Sixth Prince's names are tailored to their personal circumstances, with the Fourth Prince's name "贞/Zhen" reflecting his upright and unyielding character and the Sixth Prince's name reflecting his father's love for his mother. As a result, the naming system is historically inaccurate. Usually, children within each generation are named systematically, usually sharing a character in their names that signifies their membership within this generation. For example, since Xianchun's name contains "显/Xian", it should be "Xiankuang", "Xianyun/Xianqi", "Xianzhen", etc. However, the symbolic meaning is more important to me than historical accuracy, hence the current names in use.