No record exists of Polo's dates, but he was born into a generation with birthdates in the 2840's to 2860's of the Third Age. We know he lived until at least III 2906 because his youngest daughter Prisca was born in that year. If he lived out a typical Hobbit lifespan, Polo probably survived until about III 2950.

At least, as the English name of a game, polo comes from a Tibetan word meaning 'ball'. Tolkien presumably chose the name for its phonetic closeness to many other Baggins names (indeed he says in Appendix F II to The Lord of the Rings that it had no specific meaning) though perhaps also the associations with roundness and fatness found in many Hobbit names throughout the Shire.