You can access the day names with:
I18n.t(:"date.day_names")
#=> ["Sunday", "Monday", "Tuesday", "Wednesday", "Thursday", "Friday", "Saturday"]
and the month names with:
I18n.t(:"date.month_names")
#=> [nil, "January", "February", "March", "April", "May", "June", "July", "August", "September", "October", "November", "December"]