socket.io - socket.on wait for promise

Aside from the other answer, you can also use acknowledgements, where a callback is passed between the client and server. Then you can just use the callback of the emit function:

$("#button").click(function() {
  var exists = false; 
  var name = $("#name").val(); 

  socket.emit('check', name, function (data) { 
    exists = data.result;
    if (exists) console.log("exists");
    else (if (name.length > 0) socket.emit("create", name));
  });
});

On the server side it would look like this:

io.sockets.on('connection', function (socket) {
  socket.on('ferret', function(name, fn) {
    // find if "name" exists
    fn({ exists: false });
  });
});