The Friends Palace carries an older Chinese name, Nu Pu Gong, that reads literally as the Servants Palace, an Imperial era term for household staff, hired labour and subordinates that reflects the social structure of the world Zi Wei Dou Shu's classic texts were compiled within, one where a household of any real standing was assumed to include people in service to it whose competence and loyalty were a genuine concern worth a dedicated palace.
Modern practice has generally broadened and softened this reading considerably, extending the palace to cover colleagues, employees, chosen companions and friendship in the ordinary contemporary sense, a shift in emphasis the tradition's own English language literature reflects clearly in its now common preference for Friends over the older, more explicitly hierarchical Servants, even though the underlying Chinese term and its class bound original sense remain unchanged in the historical texts.
A star such as Tian Xiang, read elsewhere for fair minded service and mediation, falling in this palace is read as favouring loyal, capable subordinates or genuinely supportive friendships, while a star such as Ju Men suggests relationships more prone to dispute or misunderstanding, the same speech and scrutiny reading Ju Men carries as a day sign extended here to the native's wider circle.