diff --git a/suggestions.go b/suggestions.go
index 401dcef253..4c1ce9aadb 100644
--- a/suggestions.go
+++ b/suggestions.go
@@ -120,13 +120,14 @@ func suggestFlag(flags []Flag, provided string, hideHelp bool) string {
 		}
 	}
 
-	if len(suggestion) == 1 {
-		suggestion = "-" + suggestion
-	} else if len(suggestion) > 1 {
-		suggestion = "--" + suggestion
+	if len(suggestion) == 0 {
+		return ""
 	}
 
-	return suggestion
+	// Use the same rune-counting rule that drives the help output
+	// (prefixFor) so that a single-rune name is suggested as a short flag
+	// regardless of how many bytes that rune is encoded in.
+	return prefixFor(suggestion) + suggestion
 }
 
 // suggestCommand takes a list of commands and a provided string to suggest a
diff --git a/suggestions_test.go b/suggestions_test.go
index b1e962104e..67fe3c1b4a 100644
--- a/suggestions_test.go
+++ b/suggestions_test.go
@@ -38,6 +38,7 @@ func TestJaroWinkler(t *testing.T) {
 func TestSuggestFlag(t *testing.T) {
 	// Given
 	app := buildExtendedTestCommand()
+	app.Flags = append(app.Flags, &BoolFlag{Name: "é"})
 
 	for _, testCase := range []struct {
 		provided, expected string
@@ -47,6 +48,7 @@ func TestSuggestFlag(t *testing.T) {
 		{"hlp", "--help"},
 		{"k", ""},
 		{"s", "-s"},
+		{"éé", "-é"},
 	} {
 		// When
 		res := suggestFlag(app.Flags, testCase.provided, false)