For the “Only on the Internet” file, we present: the Wu-Name Generator.

Developed as an homage by British fans of the rap group Wu-Tang Clan, the Wu-Name Generator is now housed on the Web site of Santa Monica-based Recordstore.com.

The members of Wu-Tang Clan are known for their wild nicknames, including Ol’ Dirty Bastard, Ghostface Killah, Method Man, U-God, Raekwon the Chef and Inspectah Deck.

With that in mind, British Wu-phile Nick Dimmock created a computer script that would generate Wu-names for the general public. When a name is typed in, a numerical value is assigned to each of the letters. The total value of the letters triggers one of the faux Wu names dreamed up by Dimmock.

“‘The Clan can’t just venture forth into the world calling themselves Chefs and Ghostface Killers and expect to get away with it,” Dimmock replied to a recent e-mail. “People are going to demand a piece of the action But I think it’s safe to say that no name we could concoct would have one-tenth the surreal power of ‘Raekwon the Chef.'”

The generator was originally launched on the Web in mid-December and became an immediate success. When the site started getting upwards of 15,000 hits a day, Dimmock’s Internet service provider in England told him to disengage the Wu-Name game because it was chewing up too much bandwidth on its servers.

Enter Jim Goodman, founder of Recordstore.com. After taking a fancy to the Wu-Name generator, he volunteered to host it on his site. Dimmock agreed, though no money changed hands.

“This was our Internet good deed for the day that came back to bite us on the butt,” Goodman said. “It’s the Internet version of the Pet Rock.”

The site now attracts hundreds of thousands of people a day, he said, up from the negligible amount recordstore.com received at this time last month. Most Web sites would give their shirts for that kind of traffic, but Goodman is lukewarm about it.

The reason is that there isn’t much else on recordstore.com. Goodman said the site eventually will be a full-service portal for music fans, but the traffic is coming a little too early.

“The only thing of value on the site right now is the Wu-Name generator,” Goodman said. That means that all those flooding to the site might get the false impression that recordstore.com will have nothing worth getting them back in the future.

Of course, getting the company’s name out there via the wonder of Wu certainly doesn’t hurt, Goodman admits.