Ballard Mortgage is named for Ballard, a neighborhood of Seattle, WA. The neighborhood is in north Seattle, bounded on the south by the Ship Canal which links Lake Washington with Puget Sound, and is the center of the North Pacific fishing industry, with some of the best beer brewers in the US, and a great place to live.
Tamiami Mortgage is named for the famous Tamiami Trail, once only a foot trail linking Tampa to Miami, now a national highway linking eastern Florida with the lights of Miami.