Method 1: Let date be in A1, then in B1 use =A1 and give the cell a custom
format of either mmm or mmmm (mmm gives 'Jan', mmmm gives 'January') Copy B1
down column
Method 2: which lets you make the abbreviations is to use the formula
=CHOOSE(MONTH(A1),"Jan","Feb","Mar","Apr","May",
"June","July","Aug","Sept","Oct","Nov","Dec")

best wishes
--
Bernard V Liengme
Microsoft Excel MVP
http://people.stfx.ca/bliengme
remove caps from email

"Liz J" wrote in message
...
I have dates in Column A in this format: MM/DD/YYYY and I would like to
insert a column (column B) that would extract the month indicated in
column
A. For example, cell A2 says: 3/19/2008, in cell B2 I would like it to
say
"March." How would I do that in Excel?

Thanks for your help!