How to get complete month name from DateTime

Question

What is the proper way to get the complete name of month of a DateTime object?
e.g. January, December.

I am currently using:

DateTime.Now.ToString("MMMMMMMMMMMMM");

I know it's not the correct way to do it.

Yesima

Answer 1

Use the "MMMM" custom format specifier:

DateTime.Now.ToString("MMMM");

Cryptonymous

If it's only the month you're interested in then DateTime.Today instead of DateTime.Now is a further simplification. No useless time portion and a bit faster. – Shamanism

Surprisingly I'm getting the very text "MMMM" – Derringer

DateTime.Now.Month.ToString("MMMM"); will give you "MMMM". Is that what you did? – Poynter

DateTime.Now.Month.ToString("MMMM") resulted in MMMM string.. not useful – Guarino

Drop the 'Month' portion from your code. Should be: DateTime.Now.ToString("MMMM"); – Situated

Answer 2

You can do as mservidio suggested, or even better, keep track of your culture using this overload:

DateTime.Now.ToString("MMMM", CultureInfo.InvariantCulture);

Zonnya

That's neat, I need to look into this culture stuff. – Wildeyed

If it's only the month you're interested in then DateTime.Today instead of DateTime.Now is a further simplification. No useless time portion and a bit faster. – Shamanism

Answer 3

If you want the current month you can use DateTime.Now.ToString("MMMM") to get the full month or DateTime.Now.ToString("MMM") to get an abbreviated month.

If you have some other date that you want to get the month string for, after it is loaded into a DateTime object, you can use the same functions off of that object:
dt.ToString("MMMM") to get the full month or dt.ToString("MMM") to get an abbreviated month.

Reference: Custom Date and Time Format Strings

Alternatively, if you need culture specific month names, then you could try these: DateTimeFormatInfo.GetAbbreviatedMonthName Method
DateTimeFormatInfo.GetMonthName Method

Cutting

+1 for mentioning how to do it from a DateTime that is NOT DateTime.Now. I had thought it was string mon = myDate.Month.ToString("MMM") when I was sadly let down by it spitting "MMM" into my string variable. Glad you took the effort to show how to use .ToString("MMM") on the date, itself, to get the month, when it's not DateTime.Now. And how you explained the difference between MMM and MMMM. Best answer on this page. Kudos. – Pyroelectricity

If it's only the month you're interested in then DateTime.Today instead of DateTime.Now is a further simplification. No useless time portion and a bit faster. – Shamanism

Answer 4

If you receive "MMMM" as a response, probably you are getting the month and then converting it to a string of defined format.

DateTime.Now.Month.ToString("MMMM") 

will output "MMMM"

DateTime.Now.ToString("MMMM") 

will output the month name

Kyliekylila

Answer 5

You can use Culture to get month name for your country like:

System.Globalization.CultureInfo culture = new System.Globalization.CultureInfo("ar-EG");
string FormatDate = DateTime.Now.ToString("dddd., MMM dd yyyy, hh:MM tt", culture);

Wenwenceslaus

Answer 6

It's

DateTime.Now.ToString("MMMM");

With 4 Ms.

Wildeyed

If it's only the month you're interested in then DateTime.Today instead of DateTime.Now is a further simplification. No useless time portion and a bit faster. – Shamanism

Actually, the time it takes your fingers to type "Now" instead of "Today" is significantly more time saved than cpu cycles saved when using Today. – Assentor

Answer 7

DateTime birthDate = new DateTime(1981, 8, 9);
Console.WriteLine ("I was born on the {0}. of {1}, {2}.", birthDate.Day, birthDate.ToString("MMMM"), birthDate.Year);

/* The above code will say:
"I was born on the 9. of august, 1981."

"dd" converts to the day (01 thru 31).
"ddd" converts to 3-letter name of day (e.g. mon).
"dddd" converts to full name of day (e.g. monday).
"MMM" converts to 3-letter name of month (e.g. aug).
"MMMM" converts to full name of month (e.g. august).
"yyyy" converts to year.
*/

Muna

Answer 8

It should be just DateTime.ToString( "MMMM" )

You don't need all the extra Ms.

Hexastyle

Answer 9

Debug.writeline(Format(Now, "dd MMMM yyyy"))

Funiculus

Answer 10

You can use the CultureInfo from System.Globalization to get that data, based on the current culture that is being used.

_ = CultureInfo.CurrentCulture.DateTimeFormat.GetMonthName(DateTime.Now.Month)

Or, use InvariantCulture to also get the English name.

_ = CultureInfo.InvariantCulture.DateTimeFormat.GetMonthName(DateTime.Now.Month);

Athena

Answer 11

if you need three month letter use "MMM"

Dunagan

Answer 12

Being a popular question, I stumbled upon the very same question even though my requirement was for the newer DateOnly type.

Fortunately, the same approach is applicable for the newer data type as well.

DateOnly todayDate = DateOnly.FromDateTime(DateTime.UtcNow); //27-08-2023
string fullMonthName = todayDate.ToString("MMMM");
Console.WriteLine(fullMonthName); //August

Ramsdell

Answer 13

(DateTime = {07/01/2023 12:00:00 AM})

DateTime.ToString("MMMM")  - ( January )

Emera

Variants of this answer have already been provided multiple times. When answering older questions, please make sure you provide either a novel solution, or a significantly better explanation than existing answers. – Grosso

Answer 14

Use this for Full name of the month:

DateTime date = DateTime.Now;
string month = $"{date:MMMM}"; // f.g October

Use this for abbreviation name of the month:

DateTime date = DateTime.Now;
string month = $"{date:MMM}"; // f.g Oct

Use this for full name of the week:

DateTime date = DateTime.Now;
string month = $"{date:dddd}"; // f.g Saturday

Use this for abbreviation name of the week:

DateTime date = DateTime.Now;
string month = $"{date:ddd}"; // f.g Sat

You can set every custom template with this structure f.g:

DateTime date = DateTime.Now;
string month = $"{date:dd/MMM/yyyy}"; // 12/Oct/2022
string month = $"{date:dd-MM-yyyy}"; // 12-10-2022
string month = $"{date:dd MMMM yyyy}"; // 12 October 2022
string month = $"{date:ddd - - - MMM}"; // Sat - - - Oct
string month = $"{date:ddddd $- yyyy}"; // Saturday $- 2022
string month = $"{date:ddMMyyyy}"; // 12102022

Godfry