import csv


def csv_to_list(filename):
    """ creates a list of the contents of the csv
    """
    out = []
    with open(filename, newline = '') as f: #open csv file containing names
        reader = csv.reader(f) #read the file
        for row in reader: #loop over rows of the file  
            out += row #add contents of row (a name) to the final list
    return out