Insertion Sort Strings

I read a file with cities and its population and I am trying to sort the cities alphabetically using an insertion sort. The issue is that it sorts all of the elements except the first and the last one. This is the code:

    int i, j;
    String v;
    for (i = 1; i < cities.size()-1; i++)
    {
        v = cities.get(i);
        j = i;
        while (cities.get(j-1).compareToIgnoreCase(v) > 0 && j >=2)
        {
            cities.set(j, cities.get(j-1));
            j--;
        }
        cities.set(j, v);
    }

Any idea what's wrong?

Thank you.