Java Programming

I can't find the answer that I am looking for anywhere on the forums.
I don't even know if what I am trying to do is possible.

I am attempting to take clientNames[], which is composed of various strings,
and write it out to the client through output.writeObject(clientNames);
(output as ObjectOutputStream)

As far as I can tell, this is working just fine. Unforuntately, I do not know how to recieve it as an array at the client's end.
The obvious solution would be input.readObject();
(input as ObjectInputStream)
Unfortunately, once it is as the client's end, in this form it appears impossible to convert the data
back into an array of strings to access each string individually.

Is there a practical solution to this? Am I missing something?

Any example code or a reference website would be wonderful. thanks in advance : )