Localdate: format with locale

I used this and worked with me

LocalDate.now().month.getDisplayName(TextStyle.FULL,local)

tl;dr

Month
.from(
    LocalDate.now()
)
.getDisplayName( 
    TextStyle.FULL_STANDALONE , 
    new Locale( "es" , "ES" )
)

See this code run live at IdeOne.com.

julio

Month class

The Answer by Wimmer is correct. But if all you want is the name of the month, use the Month class. That may prove more direct and more flexible.

The getDisplayName method generates a localized String in various lengths (abbreviations).

LocalDate today = LocalDate.now( ZoneId.of( "America/Montreal" ) );
Month month = Month.from( today );
String monthName = month.getDisplayName( TextStyle.FULL_STANDALONE , locale );

“standalone” Month Name

Note that TextStyle offers alternative “standalone” versions of a month name. In some languages the name may be different when used as part of a date-time versus when used in general without a specific date-time.

Sorry, I used the older (and still more commonly used) date time classes of Java, as you spoke about SimpleDateFormat which is part of the older API.

When you are using java.time.LocalDate the formatter you have to use is java.time.format.DateTimeFormatter:

final DateTimeFormatter formatter = DateTimeFormatter.ofPattern("MMM", aLocale);
final String month = LocalDate.now().format(formatter);