Creating a record and checking if one already exists

Creating a record and checking if one already exists

I have a referral form set up with a custom approval process (couldn't use the built in one because the referral form is published, and still needed the approval functionality).  

Once a referral is "approved" the deluge script creates a new record in our "main profile" records for the family being referred, and it populates the new record with information submitted in the referral form.

My question is - is it possible to include some way to check first if there is already a record with the same name (full name of a child in this case) in our database so that a duplicate record isn't created?  I would use the option to not have a duplicate entry, but that's not available for the name field.  

Thanks,
Wanda