How to parse a month name (string) to an integer for comparison in C#?

DateTime.ParseExact(monthName, "MMMM", CultureInfo.CurrentCulture ).Month

Although, for your purposes, you'll probably be better off just creating a Dictionary<string, int> mapping the month's name to its value.

You could do something like this:

Convert.ToDate(month + " 01, 1900").Month

If you use the DateTime.ParseExact()-method that several people have suggested, you should carefully consider what you want to happen when the application runs in a non-English environment!

In Denmark, which of ParseExact("Januar", ...) and ParseExact("January", ...) should work and which should fail?

That will be the difference between CultureInfo.CurrentCulture and CultureInfo.InvariantCulture.

One simply solution would be create a Dictionary with names and values. Then using Contains() you can find the right value.

Dictionary<string, string> months = new Dictionary<string, string>()
{
                { "january", "01"},
                { "february", "02"},
                { "march", "03"},
                { "april", "04"},
                { "may", "05"},
                { "june", "06"},
                { "july", "07"},
                { "august", "08"},
                { "september", "09"},
                { "october", "10"},
                { "november", "11"},
                { "december", "12"},
};
foreach (var month in months)
{
    if (StringThatContainsMonth.ToLower().Contains(month.Key))
    {
        string thisMonth = month.Value;
    }
}