In Visual Basic for Applications (VBA), the WEEKDAYNAME function is a nifty little tool that I find incredibly useful when working with dates. It comes in quite handy especially when I need to convert those pesky day numbers into actual weekday names. Think of it as a straightforward translator that takes a number, say 1 through 7, and tells you the corresponding day name like Sunday, Monday, and so forth.

In my experience, whether you’re building schedules or creating custom calendars within an Excel VBA project, this function is a lifesaver. Just a small piece of code can provide significant support to your application, improving user understanding and interaction with date-related data. Plus, it’s always fun to tailor the function to get full names or abbreviations, depending on what I’m after in the project.

Syntax

  • Weekday: Required. Integer (1-7).
  • Abbreviate: Optional. Boolean.
  • FirstDayOfWeek: Optional. Integer (1-7).
Argument Type Description Default Value
Weekday Integer Numeric day of week (1=Monday to 7=Sunday). None (Required)
Abbreviate Boolean True for abbreviation, False for full name. False (Full name)
FirstDayOfWeek Integer Set first day of the week (1=Monday to 7=Sunday). System Default

Example:

myDayName = WeekdayName(3)

Arguments

Here’s what I keep in mind when using the WeekdayName function:

  • Weekday: Input the day number for the day of the week—1 through 7. It’s like telling it exactly what day we’re talking about.

  • [Abbreviate]:

    Value Meaning
    TRUE Abbreviated name (e.g., “Mon”, “Tue”)
    FALSE Full name (e.g., “Monday”, “Tuesday”)

    This one’s optional, and if I skip it, it assumes I want the full day name.

  • [FirstDayOfWeek]: This decides which day is considered the start of the week. Again, totally optional. If I leave it out, it defaults to Sunday. But if needed, here are the constants I can use:

    Constant Equivalent
    vbUseSystemDayOfWeek System setting
    vbSunday Sunday
    vbMonday Monday
    vbTuesday Tuesday
    vbWednesday Wednesday
    vbThursday Thursday
    vbFriday Friday
    vbSaturday Saturday

Hope that helps make things clearer!

Example

Sub MyWeekdayExample()
    ' Set range value to abbreviated weekday name; 1 refers to first day of week
    Range("A1").Value = WeekdayName(1, True, vbMonday)
End Sub

I just ran a macro in Excel that populates cell A1 with “Mon” – that’s because I used the WeekdayName function with some specific settings:

  • 1: Grabs the full name of the first weekday, which is normally Sunday but I changed it.
  • True: Means I want it abbreviated; otherwise, I’d get “Monday”.
  • vbMonday: I chose this to redefine my week, starting it on Monday instead of Sunday.

It’s straightforward, helping to personalize dates in Excel. Really neat for customizing reports or dashboards where space is tight and abbreviations come in handy!

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