How many names for God are there?

I have hazy memories of a science fiction story that I read at least 45 years ago that the Tibetans have a million names for God, hence the prayer wheels and the prayer flags which praise the gods without ceasing, which is impossible for mere mortals.

Arthur C. Clarke has had some to say about why the universe works the way it does. From the introduction to his short story ‘The Nine Billion Names of God’ in the anthology of the same name he writes “J.B.S (Haldane) also remarked of this story, and “The Star”: ‘You are one of the very few living persons who has written anything original about God. You have in fact written several mutually incompatible things. If you had stuck to on theological hypothesis you might have been a serious public danger.’ I am glad of my self-contradiction, preferring to remain a prophet with a small p.” The story of ‘The Nine Billion Names of God’ runs like this: back when computers were big, a lamasery in Tibet wishes to buy a computer.

“…We have been compiling a list which shall contain all the possible names of God. … Call it ritual, if you like, but it’s a fundamental part of our belief. All the many names of the Supreme Being – God, Jehovah, Allah, and so on – they are only man-made labels. There is a philosophical problem of some difficulty here, which I do not propose to discuss, but somewhere among all the possible combinations of letters that can occur are what one may call the real names of God. By systematic permutation of letters we have been trying to list them all.”

They buy the computer, and hire two engineers to run it (remember, this was written when computers were big!). One of the engineers has had a friendly conversation with the head lama, and is speaking to the other engineer. “Well, they believe that when the have listed all His names – and they reckon there about nine billion of them – God’s purpose will be achieved. The human race will have finished what it was created to do, and there won’t be any point in carrying on. Indeed, the very idea is something like blasphemy.” This does not look good for our heroes. They perform a small piece of sabotage, so that the end of the nine billion name run will happen just after they have left for the airport, and the flight home.

“Should be there in about an hour,” he called back over his shoulder to Chuck. Then he added in an afterthought: “Wonder if the computer’s finished its run. It was due about now.”
Chuck didn’t reply, so George swung around in his saddle. He could just see Chuck’s face, a white oval turned toward the sky.
“Look,” whispered Chuck, and George lifted his eyes to heaven. (There is always a list time for everything.)
Overhead, without any fuss, the stars were going out.