What is an array?

An array is a collection of items (called elements) of the same data type.  An array is used to hold a collection of data that would otherwise be stored in multiple variables. For example, to store the names of four people, you could have four variables: name1, name2, name3 and name4. The problem with this approach is that it would not be possible to refer to a specific name or loop through all the names with a for or while command. That is because the number or index is part of the identifier (name of the variable). Instead, we need to declare name1 as name[1] and so on. 

Note how the index is now enclosed in brackets. Some programming languages used curved brackets while others use square brackets.