Months in German: Januar to Dezember, IPA, Jänner and date writing

Latin names in German spelling

Every German month name is Latin, adapted to German spelling. The Duden derives Januar from mensis Ianuarius, the month of Janus, and März from Martius, the month of Mars, through Old High German merzo. Mai comes through Old High German meio from Maius. The four last months still carry the numbers of the old Roman year, which began in March: September was the seventh month, Oktober the eighth, November the ninth and Dezember the tenth.

German spelling shows in three places. C before e becomes z in Dezember, and c before t becomes k in Oktober. The umlaut in März is the trace of the Old High German form. Otherwise the names are written as in English, with a capital letter, and a reader of English recognises all twelve.

Juli and August are named after Roman rulers. German Wikipedia's article on month names notes that July was Quintilis, the fifth month, until it was renamed after Julius Caesar in 44 BC, and August was Sextilis until it took the name of the emperor Augustus in 8 BC.

Jänner and Feber: the Austrian months in German

Austria has its own name for January. The Duden lists Jänner as Austrian and, less often, southern German, with the abbreviation Jän. Its source is Middle High German jenner, from the Late Latin form Ienuarius. German Wikipedia puts it more strongly: in Austria the month is called only Jänner. Calendars, newspapers and software set to Austrian German use it; CLDR, the locale data behind phones and computers, prints Jänner for Austria and Januar for Germany and Switzerland.

Feber for February is rarer. The Duden marks it as Austrian and typical of administrative German, so it turns up on forms more than in conversation. Both words are fully correct standard German in Austria, and a letter from Vienna dated 12. Jänner is not a typo.

Spoken German has two other quirks for clarity. Juni and Juli differ by one sound, so on the telephone and in offices many speakers say Juno and Julei. Zwo for two works the same way, keeping zwei apart from drei.

How to write and say a date in German

The day comes first, written as an ordinal with a dot: der 3. März, read der dritte März. With am, the article goes into the dative: am 3. März, am dritten März. A full date in German order runs weekday, day, month, year: Dienstag, 3. März 2026, which is exactly the long format that CLDR prints for German.

Months are masculine (der Januar, der Mai), and in a month is im, the short form of in dem: im Januar, im Sommer. Beginning, middle and end take no preposition at all: Anfang März, Mitte Mai, Ende Oktober. A number of months is Monate: drei Monate.

In figures, German writes day, month and year separated by dots: 03.03.2026 or 3.3.2026. The DIN 5008 rules for business letters also allow the ISO form 2026-03-03. Germans regularly name months by number in speech, so der zweite Dritte means the second of March, said quickly over the phone.

One more spelling point concerns the abbreviations. CLDR uses Mär for March, but the national annex to DIN ISO 8601 prefers Mrz, because the umlaut caused trouble in older computer systems. Both appear on German forms and timetables.

The old German month names

German had native month names before the Latin ones won. German Wikipedia records attempts to introduce them under Charlemagne in the 8th century and again by the Deutscher Sprachverein in the 1920s. Neither lasted; the article notes that in October 1935 the propaganda ministry told the press not to use them.

Some survive in poetry and set phrases. Hartung or Eismond stood for January, Hornung for February, Lenzing for March, Ostermond for April, Wonnemonat for May, Brachet for June, Heuet for July, Ernting for August, Scheiding for September, Gilbhart for October, Nebelung for November and Julmond for December. The Duden still lists Hornung, marked as obsolete. Wonnemonat Mai, the month of delight, is the one most Germans know, though it began as Winnemond, a word connected with grazing.

The months of the year table gives the German names beside those of other languages, and Swiss German and Pennsylvania German appear there with their own spellings, from Janner and Horni to Yenner and Hanning.