Why use $names?

I am having a some difficulty understanding why we created an array named $names then transfer that to the function hello which is then converted into $arr. Why not just name the array $arr from the begging and transfer that to hello. I am not sure whats the point of $names is. When I changed the code it still worked. See below. Why do this??

<?php

function hello($arr){ if(is_array($arr)) { foreach($arr as $name) { echo "Hello there $name, how's it going bud?</br>"; } } else { echo 'Hello friends!'; }

}

$names = array ( 'Kevin', 'James', 'Alex', 'Peter', 'Scott', 'Pedro', 'Juan' );

hello($names);

?>

Instead of this?

<?php

function hello($arr){ if(is_array($arr)) { foreach($arr as $name) { echo "Hello there $name, how's it going bud?</br>"; } } else { echo 'Hello friends!'; }

}

$arr = array ( 'Kevin', 'James', 'Alex', 'Peter', 'Scott', 'Pedro', 'Juan' );

hello($arr);

?>