Excel: How to Convert Numbers 1-12 to Month Name


You can use the following formula in Excel to convert a number between 1 and 12 to a month name:

=TEXT(A2*28,"mmmm")

This particular formula converts the number in cell A2 to a month name.

For example, if cell A2 contains the number 8 then then this formula will return August, since the eighth month of the year is August.

The following examples show how to use each formula in practice.

Example: Convert Numbers 1-12 to Month Name in Excel

Suppose we have the following column of month numbers in Excel:

We can type the following formula into cell B2 to convert the number in cell A2 to a month name:

=TEXT(A2*28,"mmmm")

We can then drag and fill this formula down to each remaining cell in column B:

Excel convert number to month name

Column B now displays the month name for each month number in column A.

If you would instead like to display the abbreviated month name then you can use “mmm” in the TEXT function instead:

=TEXT(A2*28,"mmm")

The following screenshot shows how to use this formula in practice:

Excel convert number to month name

Column B now displays the abbreviated month name for each month number in column A.

How This Formula Works

Recall the formula that we used to convert the number in cell A2 to a month name:

=TEXT(A2*28,"mmmm")

First, we multiply the value in cell A2 by 28.

For example, we in cell A2 we get 1 * 28 = 28.

By default, Excel uses serial numbers to represent dates as the number of days since 1/1/1900.

Thus, 28 is interpreted as 1/29/1900

Then we use the TEXT function to format this date as a full month name by specifying “mmmm” as the format code.

The same step is repeated for each numeric value in column A to return the correct month name.

Note that you could also multiply by 29 and the formula would return the correct month name.

However, any number besides 28 and 29 will not return the correct month names for each month.

Additional Resources

The following tutorials explain how to perform other common tasks in Excel:

How to Convert Month Name to Number in Excel
How to Convert Days to Months in Excel
How to Calculate the Number of Months Between Dates in Excel

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