It was discovered by J. J. Kavelaars, Brett J. Gladman, Jean-Marc Petit, Hans Scholl, Matthew J. Holman, Brian G. Marsden, Philip D. Nicholson and Joseph A. Burns in early October 2000,[6][7][8] and given the temporary designation S/2000 S 2.

It was named in August 2003 after a fictional shaman in the book The Curse of the Shaman, written by Michael Kusugak, who supplied Kavelaars with the names of giants from Inuit mythology that were used for other Saturnian moons.

[9] Paaliaq is thought to be about 29 kilometres in diameter, and orbits Saturn at an average distance of 15.0 million km in 687 days.

It is light red in color, and in the infrared the Paaliapian (Paaliaqan)[a] spectrum is very similar to the Inuit-group satellites Kiviuq and Siarnaq, supporting the thesis of a possible common origin of the Inuit group in the break-up of a larger body.

[5][10] Its light curve has an unusual pattern of four minima, suggesting that it has a very peculiar shape.