Suffixes will vary depending on the voicebank, and there are two purposes for them: Multipitch and expression sets.
Multipitch is automatically handled by the prefix map. For example, if you have a note at F4, UTAU could put the "E4" suffix after the lyric and use a sample that was originally recorded at E4. You can force UTAU to use a sample with no suffixes by putting a question mark at the beginning of the lyric.
Suffixes can also access alternative samples recorded in different expressive ways. For example, a voicebank that has powerful and soft samples. In order to use the soft version of a particular note, you will need to put the corresponding suffix after the lyric manually. The exact suffix depends on the voicebank, so be sure to read any documentation such as the readme file or the website.