Assumption:
list - List<String>
Using Java 8 Streams,
to get first N elements from a list into a list,
List<String> firstNElementsList = list.stream().limit(n).collect(Collectors.toList());
to get first N elements from a list into an Array,
String[] firstNElementsArray = list.stream().limit(n).collect(Collectors.toList()).toArray(new String[n]);