Asterisk literally means little star. The word comes from Greek asteriskos, a diminutive form of aster, meaning star. That origin fits the symbol *, which looks like a simple star shape.
In English, asterisk can refer to both the word and the symbol. The symbol has several common uses, and the name stays the same in each case:
- Footnotes: A writer may place an asterisk after a word to point to a note, as in term*.
- Censored words: It can replace letters, as in d*mn.
- Computing: It often works as a wildcard or special character, such as * standing for any file name pattern.
The important point is that the name is not arbitrary. It is based on shape. Many punctuation names describe function, but asterisk also preserves a very old visual idea: a little star on the page.
This is also a useful contrast with words like period or comma, whose names do not immediately suggest a star like shape. Asterisk does, which makes its history easier to remember.