Saving arrays of elements in the json object into different rows

You need to duplicate Person objects n times where n is size of phone array. To make it clear, I propose, to create two separate models which we can use separately for parsing JSON and saving in DB. Below you can find simple example which:

1. Parses JSON to List<JsonPerson>
2. Converts List<JsonPerson> to List<Person>
3. Prints List<Person> (you can save it to DB)

Example:

import com.fasterxml.jackson.core.JsonProcessingException;
import com.fasterxml.jackson.databind.JsonNode;
import com.fasterxml.jackson.databind.ObjectMapper;
import com.fasterxml.jackson.databind.node.ArrayNode;
import com.fasterxml.jackson.databind.type.CollectionType;

import java.io.File;
import java.util.ArrayList;
import java.util.List;
import java.util.stream.Collectors;

public class JsonApp {

    public static void main(String[] args) throws Exception {
        File jsonFile = new File("./resource/test.json").getAbsoluteFile();

        ObjectMapper mapper = new ObjectMapper();
        CollectionType personsType = mapper.getTypeFactory().constructCollectionType(List.class, JsonPerson.class);

        // parse
        List<JsonPerson> jsonPersons = mapper.readValue(jsonFile, personsType);

        // convert
        List<Person> persons = jsonPersons.stream()
                .map(p -> p.mapTo(mapper))
                .flatMap(List::stream)
                .collect(Collectors.toList());

        persons.forEach(System.out::println);

        // save persons to DB
        // ...
    }
}

class JsonPerson {

    private Integer id;
    private String name;
    private ArrayNode phone;

    public List<Person> mapTo(ObjectMapper mapper) {
        List<Person> persons = new ArrayList<>();
        phone.elements().forEachRemaining(phone -> {
            persons.add(map(mapper, phone));
        });

        return persons;
    }

    private Person map(ObjectMapper mapper, JsonNode p) {
        Person person = new Person();
        person.setId(id);
        person.setName(name);
        try {
            person.setPhone(mapper.writeValueAsString(p));
        } catch (JsonProcessingException e) {
            throw new IllegalStateException(e);
        }

        return person;
    }

    // getters, setters, toString
}

class Person {

    private Integer id;
    private String name;
    private String phone;

    // getters, setters, toString
}

Above code prints:

Person{id=1, name='John Doe', phone='{"type":"home","ref":"111-111-1234"}'}
Person{id=1, name='John Doe', phone='{"type":"work","ref":"222-222-2222"}'}
Person{id=2, name='Jane Doe', phone='{"type":"home","ref":"111-111-1234"}'}
Person{id=2, name='Jane Doe', phone='{"type":"work","ref":"222-222-2222"}'}

Above code separates parsing JSON from other parts. Also, do not create ObjectMapper in each POJO. POJO should not know anything about ObjectMapper and Jackson.

Update

Because name is JSON Object you can create new POJO - Name with first and last properties or treat it similarly to phone and deserialise to JsonNode:

class JsonPerson {

    private Integer id;
    private JsonNode name;
    private ArrayNode phone;

    public List<Person> mapTo(ObjectMapper mapper) {
        List<Person> persons = new ArrayList<>();
        phone.elements().forEachRemaining(phone -> {
            persons.add(map(mapper, phone));
        });

        return persons;
    }

    private Person map(ObjectMapper mapper, JsonNode p) {
        Person person = new Person();
        person.setId(id);
        person.setName(getNameAsString());
        try {
            person.setPhone(mapper.writeValueAsString(p));
        } catch (JsonProcessingException e) {
            throw new IllegalStateException(e);
        }

        return person;
    }

    private String getNameAsString() {
        if (name == null) {
            return null;
        }
        StringBuilder builder = new StringBuilder();
        if (name.isObject()) {
            ObjectNode nameObject = (ObjectNode) name;
            builder.append("[");
            builder.append("{").append(nameObject.get("first")).append("}");
            builder.append(",");
            builder.append("{").append(nameObject.get("last")).append("}");
            builder.append("]");
        }
        return builder.toString();
    }

    // getters, setters, toString
}

After change above code should print:

Person{id=1, name='[{"John"},{"Doe"}]', phone='{"type":"home","ref":1111111234}'}
Person{id=1, name='[{"John"},{"Doe"}]', phone='{"type":"work","ref":2222222222}'}
Person{id=2, name='[{"Jane"},{"Doe"}]', phone='{"type":"home","ref":1111111234}'}
Person{id=2, name='[{"Jane"},{"Doe"}]', phone='{"type":"work","ref":2222222222}'}

getNameAsString method is simplified, you need to handle all corner cases and create String representation better for null, empty and semi-empty nodes.