Convert JSONArray to String Array

Take a look at this tutorial. Also you can parse above json like :

JSONArray arr = new JSONArray(yourJSONresponse);
List<String> list = new ArrayList<String>();
for(int i = 0; i < arr.length(); i++){
    list.add(arr.getJSONObject(i).getString("name"));
}

Simplest and correct code is:

public static String[] toStringArray(JSONArray array) {
    if(array==null)
        return null;

    String[] arr=new String[array.length()];
    for(int i=0; i<arr.length; i++) {
        arr[i]=array.optString(i);
    }
    return arr;
}

Using List<String> is not a good idea, as you know the length of the array. Observe that it uses arr.length in for condition to avoid calling a method, i.e. array.length(), on each loop.

public static String[] getStringArray(JSONArray jsonArray) {
    String[] stringArray = null;
    if (jsonArray != null) {
        int length = jsonArray.length();
        stringArray = new String[length];
        for (int i = 0; i < length; i++) {
            stringArray[i] = jsonArray.optString(i);
        }
    }
    return stringArray;
}

shameless hack:

String[] arr = jsonArray.toString().replace("},{", " ,").split(" ");

You can loop to create the String

List<String> list = new ArrayList<String>();
for (int i=0; i<jsonArray.length(); i++) {
    list.add( jsonArray.getString(i) );
}
String[] stringArray = list.toArray(new String[list.size()]);