Why does my pointer to struct forget strings?

Question

In my main functions I have two players which are represented by structs with data, including names. When in another source file I create a pointer to these structures, I am unable to access the name strings, whereas the rest of the data is fine.

//In pokemonList.c
typedef struct{

    char name[20];
    int level;
    int health;
    int type;
    int type2;


    int fainted;


    int moves[4];

    //stats
    int hp;
    int attack;
    int defense;
    int spAttack;
    int spDefense;
    int speed;

    int attackStage;
    int defenseStage;
    int spAttackStage;
    int spDefenseStage;
    int speedStage;

    int spriteNo;

}Pokemon;

Pokemon summon(Pokemon pokemon, int level){
    pokemon.level = level;
    pokemon.health = (int)((((2.0 * (double)pokemon.hp) + 31.0) * (double)level)/100.0) + (double)level + 10.0;
    pokemon.attack = levelUp(pokemon.attack, pokemon.level);
    pokemon.defense = levelUp(pokemon.defense, pokemon.level);
    return pokemon;
}

//In main.c
player1 = summon(venusaur, 50);
player2 = summon(blastoise, 100);

initialiseGUI(&player1, &player2);

//In video.c

void initialiseGUI(Pokemon *p1, Pokemon *p2){

    strcpy(player1name, p1->name);
    strcpy(player2name, p2->name);
    printf("p1->name: %s\n", p1->name);
    player1 = p1;
    player2 = p2;

    printf("p1->name: %s\nplayer1->name: %s\n", p1->name, player1->name);
}

I expected the output of this to be:

p1->name: Venusaur

p1->name: Venusaur

player1->name: Venusaur

Actual output:

p1->name: Venusaur

p1->name:

player1->name:

all the other data in the struct is accessible from player1->....

Answer 1

player1 must be of type Pokemon as it gets its value from the function summon that return a Pokemon

p1 is of type Pokemon * (aka Pokemon pointer)

and you do player1 = p1;

In other words - you assign a "Pokemon pointer" to a "Pokemon" which is invalid.

What seems to happen is that you overwrite part of the string name with the pointer variable and thereby destroy the string value.