Month and day abbreviations I was trying to align some months in a column. Their names didn't cooperate so I used their numerical equivalents - 02 for Febuary, etc. But those require some education and don't quite communicate a month - they could be symbols or numbers for any number of things. I wondered why we haven't established a consistent set of 2 letter abbreviations like we have for states. One letter would not work because of June and July, May and March, and April and August. Two makes sense because we are familiar with two letters for the state postal abbreviations. So I set out to determine the most logical pairing of letters to represent each month. The first letter of the two should be the initial letter of the month - we are already familiar with that, not much education will be required. The second letter could be the second letter of the month, the next most significant letter, or the last letter of the month. Criteria • Two letters - minimum number with clarity and consistent spacing • Clarity of month • Not confused with another month (JU - June or July?) • Not confused with a state (AR, AL, DC, MA, NV, OR) • Not confused with another word (DR - Doctor, OR - or, AP - Associated Press, MY - my, AT - at) A list of some options      JA   JY    JN      FE   FB   FY      MA   MR   MH      AP   AR   AL      MA   MY      JU   JN   JE      JU   JL   JY      AU   AG   AT      SE   SP   ST   SR      OC   OT   OR      NO   NV   NR      DE   DC   DR Proposed set - three letters      JAN      FEB      MAR      APR      MAY      JUN      JUL      AUG      SEP      OCT      NOV      DEC Features/advantages • Consistency • Clarity of communication • Easy to learn • Easy to remember We will learn them fairly easily and be able to communicate more clearly. We learned the postal state abbreviations and those have become quite standard. We can do the same with month abbreviations. Date Concept: Starbucks at Battery Park, New York City, October 15, 2005. Origins of the names of the months Days of the week Designers, writers, and editors, should include the day of the week along with the date. More info Origins of the days of the week Sunday - Latin dies Solis, "Day of the Sun" Monday - Latin Lunae dies, "Day of the Moon" Tuesday - Day of the war god Tiw, translation of the Latin dies Martis, "Day of Mars" Wednesday - Woden's day, translation of Latin Mercuru dies, Day of Mercury Thursday - Norse, "Thor's day", Germanic translation of Latin dies Jovis Friday - "Freya's day" Saturday - Latin Saturni dies, "Saturn's day Abbreviations for days of the week SU   Sunday MO   Monday TU   Tuesday WE   Wednesday TH   Thursday FR   Friday SA   Saturday