def get_pokemon_names(cur):
    """Returns a list of pokemon names in the database (as strs) sorted in
    alphabetical order

    Args:
        cur: an open sqlite3 cursor created from a connection to the pokemon db
    """

    new_list = []
    query = ('SELECT name FROM pokemon')
    cur.execute(query)
    data = cur.fetchall()
    for element in data:
        new_list.append(element[0])
    return sorted(new_list)