DATENAME Function [Date and Time]

Returns the name of the specified part (such as the month “June”) of a date/time value, as a character string.

Syntax

DATENAME ( date-part, date-expression )

Parameters
Parameter	Description
date-part	The date part to be named.
date-expression	The date for which the date part name is to be returned. The date must contain the requested date-part.

VARCHAR

The following statement returns the value May:

SELECT DATENAME( MONTH , '1987/05/02' )
FROM iq_dummy

The following statement returns the value 722,001:

SELECT DATENAME(MICROSECOND, '2009-11-10
14:57:52.722001') FROM iq_dummy

The following statement returns the value 777,777:

SELECT DATENAME(MICROSECOND, '2000/07/07
07:07:07.777777') FROM iq_dummy

The following statement returns the value 33,189:

SELECT DATENAME(MCS, '2009-11-03 11:10:42.033189')
FROM iq_dummy

DATENAME returns a character string, even if the result is numeric, such as 23, for the day.