Why can't one use pointer to char pointers instead of array of char pointers?

Question

When I try the second option in the following code to initialize names, I get a segmentation fault. I guess there is something conceptually incorrect with the second option. Any ideas?

 char *names[] = {
            "Alan", "Frank",
            "Mary", "John", "Lisa"
        };

 char **names = {
            "Alan", "Frank",
            "Mary", "John", "Lisa"
        };

Answer 1

Yes. In first case, you have an array of pointers. Each pointer points to a separate item(Alan, Frank...)

The second declaration

char **names;

implies that names is a pointer to a pointer[You cannot initialize a set of strings like this]. As in

char *str = "hello"
char **names = &str;

Answer 2

It has a completely different memory layout.

Your first example is an array of pointers. It occupies 5 times the size of a char *.

Your 2nd example, however, is a pointer to a location where one or more char * are to be expected. It is not possible to initialize it the way you do it.