JavaScript: How to get the month name from a Date object tutorial

Sometimes, you want to get the month name from a JavaScript Date object instead of the number representation. For example, you want to get the month name "January" from the following date:

const date = new Date("01/20/2021"); // 20th January 2021

To get the string "January" from the date above, you need to use a JavaScript Date object method named toLocaleString() which returns a locale-sensitive string representing the value of Date object.

The toLocaleString() method accepts two parameters:

• The locale representing the locale-sensitive, could be a string or an array
• An options object, where you decide what the method will return

For example, here’s how to return the month of the date:

const date = new Date("01/20/2021"); // 20th January 2021
const month = date.toLocaleString('default', { month: 'long' });

console.log(month); // "January"

The 'default' argument will use the locale currently used by your computer. You may need to use en-US to get the right month in English. The option { month: 'long' } will return the full month name. You can get the three letters representing the month using { month: 'short' } option:

const date = new Date("01/20/2021"); // 20th January 2021
const month = date.toLocaleString('default', { month: 'short' });

console.log(month); // "Jan"

And that’s how you can get the month name from a JavaScript Date object value.