Removing specific element from a list

Question

Hello, I'm very new to java, and to programming in general.
I'm trying to write a secret santa app for my family for christmas. Essentially the idea is that 7 names are put into a list, and each time a name is "pulled" (i.e. randomly assigned to a name /= itself) it will be removed from the list of available names to assign.
String[] nList = { name2, name3, name4, name5, name6, name7 }; // store names for random use
Random r = new Random();
name1assign = nList[r.nextInt(nList.length)];
String[] nList2 = { name1, name3, name4, name5, name6, name7 };
name2assign = nList2[r.nextInt(nList2.length)];
My goal for this is to take the string that is equal to name1assign, and remove an element with that string from nList2.
Can anyone give me some advice in this matter?
Thanks.

Answer 1

Sometimes a null value is used to indicate an 'empty' array element, but it would be better to try collections instead.
You could use an ArrayList instead of an array. This has methods to remove items by index or value.
An ArrayList also works with Collections.shuffle, which allows you to simply iterate over the list and not deal with random or removing elements at all.