Progressing through the Secret World you gain access to a variety of Gadgets. Do you have a favourite one?
Share your research, correlate and speculate on the meaning behind their names, their icons and function(s).
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The Kaidan container gadgets all have nice bits of lore behind them.
The Mistress’s Bashosen: ‘Bashosen’ is the Japanese version of ‘bajiaoshan’, or ‘banana palm fan’ in Chinese. It refers to a magical weapon that appears in Journey to the West: a fan made from banana leaves that could create whirlwinds (hence the gadget’s effect – Diabolical Typhoon).
Asibikaashi’s Hoop: Apparently, Asibikaashi is a spider goddess from the beliefs of the Ojibwe Native Americans; the ‘hoop’ no doubt refers to the hoops used in dreamcatchers (which also have webs). The gadget’s effect is probably derived from dreamcatchers’ power to cleanse bad dreams.
Ausadhirdipyamanas Seeds: Seeds of a healing plant used by the Ashvins, divine twin horsemen from Hindu mythology.
Boincan Flask: Per the gadget’s effect, Boinca is the name of one of the reputed sites of the Fountain of Youth. It was supposedly an island somewhere in the Bay of Honduras.
Kris Setan Kober: The kris is the traditional wavy-bladed dagger of the Javanese people of Indonesia, and the gadget’s effect is also the translation of Setan Kober – ‘devil of the grave’. A kris by that name appears in Javanese folklore as a cursed weapon that drives its wielders to impatience and self-destruction.
Shard of Sessho-seki: Per the gadget’s effect, the Sessho-seki is a ‘Killing Stone’ from Japanese myth that kills any living thing that touches it. Apparently, you can visit the actual site of this stone today – it’s a tourist attraction in Nasu.
Primeval Jötunn Cranial Fragment: Jötunn are giants from Norse mythology.
Ningishzida’s Rod: Ningishzida was a Sumerian god of trees and the underworld. He was sometimes depicted as a serpent, which ties in nicely with the gadget’s effect, Renewing Ecolysis – ecolysis is a term for molting or shedding of skin, which snakes do.
True Ancile of the Salii: The ancile is basically the Roman equivalent of the Palladium of Troy. It was a divine shield that fell from heaven in pre-Republican Rome, along with a prophecy that Rome’s power would never fail while the ancile was in its possession. Because of its importance, eleven fakes were made to confuse thieves. The shields were watched over by a body of twelve priests known as the Salii.
I like to imagine most of the other gadgets are Orochi inventions, which leads into some hilarious speculation on what they were originally developed for…
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Impressive research effort! 
Those gadget icons gain more relevance in light of the information you’ve shared. Asibikaashi’s Hoop pattern must be of dream-catcher design, the Jötunn Cranial Fragment is half of a horned skull, the Ausadhirdipyamanas a rose-like plant, and the Kris an asymmetrical blade.
The design on the Superluminal Bridging Device (Superluminal refers to apparent faster-than-light motion in astronomy) appears to me like a squat, rounded plane. This brings to mind the Quimbaya artifacts, golden objects found in Colombia dated at around 1000 CE, yet are theorised to represent modern airplanes and therefore categorised as OOPAs (out-of-place artifacts). Conventional wisdom holds that faster-than-light motion could result in time-travel.
Edit: the Gadget teleports you backwards
There are also Museum of the Occult Gadgets with their particular effects.
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Nice! Ancient astronaut theories are always fun to play with. Given how many departing UFOs have been observed to just blink out of existence rather than flying off, it makes perfect sense to model the Superluminal Bridging Device on one.
I realize I’ve forgotten one of the Kaidan gadgets: the Ring of Mudarra. Per its effect, Halves Conjoined, it is a reference to a medieval Spanish legend called the Song of the Seven Lara Princes. This is a tale of family feuding and revenge in which a character named Mudarra Gonzalez recognizes his long-lost father by matching halves of a broken ring — and in some versions of the story, the ring’s reunification also restores sight to the age-blind father.
Museum gadgets are self-explanatory, I think — they’re just miniaturized versions of the holographic pedestals that generate effects patterned on the memory of certain monsters’ capabilities. Many of the dungeon drop gadgets too; even the ones that aren’t obviously of Orochi make (e.g. Vali Metabolic Accelerator) look like they came off an Orochi production line (e.g. Personal Sentry Gun, which is an Orochi turret).
Perhaps someone chemically savvy can explain the Osmium Configuration, though…
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Osmium is heavy.
Museum Gadgets might be Orochi too with Mnemonic Technologies an Anansi subsidiary, as only the Orochi would be twisted enough to try to market those summoned monstrosities as ‘friendly’.
I like to speculate that with the Purification Drone the ‘UW-0’ stands for Universal Wash Original (prototype) model, however with most of the gadget names that contain model numbers the characters don’t appear of any relevance to me.
Notwithstanding, the Improvised ECT Instrumentation gadget could stand for Electroconvulsive therapy, as the effect from the gadget is an electrical discharge.