Probably the easiest way to do that is
char({'y';'v1';'v2'})
However, if the longest string had trailing blanks, some of those blanks may be lost.
In MATLAB, there is no independent string data type. A string is a character row vector. Your request for a 3 by 1 vector is thus a request for a column vector that is exactly 1 character wide. You are requesting to put 5 characters in to something you want to have only 3 total characters.
The most direct method to build the character array is to pad each row out with blanks so that all the rows are the same size:
x = ['y ';'v1';'v2'];
This would create a 3 x 2 character array. x(2,:) would be 'v1' -- but x(1,:) would be 'y ' (y space). If you want to use variable-length strings then you need to use a cell array such as
x = {'y';'v1';'v2'};
With that, x{1} would be 'y', x{2} would be 'v1'. Notice the use of {} to get to the contents. x(1) would be {'y'} which is a cell array that has a single member that contains 'y'.
