List all node titles to better iterate on a list of names
If you just need to create the nodes that don't have a specific title (which I guess it's just a country name), you don't need to use node_title_list(), whose purpose is rendering a list of node titles as links. Just load the nodes and check which titles aren't already used.
$country_list = ['Mexico', 'Tanzania', 'Brazil', 'Camaron'];

$query = new EntityFieldQuery();
$query-&gt;entityCondition('entity_type', 'node')
  -&gt;entityCondition('bundle', 'country_profile')
  // Remove the following line if you don't need to get only published nodes.
  -&gt;propertyCondition('status', NODE_PUBLISHED)
  // Keep the following line, so Drupal won't check if the currently logged-in user has access to the nodes and the fields.
  -&gt;addTag('DANGEROUS_ACCESS_CHECK_OPT_OUT');
$result = $query-&gt;execute();
if (isset($result['node'])) {
  $country_list = array_flip($country_list);
  $nodes = entity_load('node', array_keys($result['node']));
  foreach ($nodes as $node) {
    unset($country_list[$node-&gt;title]);
  }
  $country_list = array_flip($country_list);
}

if (!empty($country_list)) {
  // There are nodes that need to be created; their titles are in $country_list.
}

Even better, load those nodes whose title is equal to one of the country names you already have.
$country_list = ['Mexico', 'Tanzania', 'Brazil', 'Camaron'];

$query = new EntityFieldQuery();
$query-&gt;entityCondition('entity_type', 'node')
  -&gt;entityCondition('bundle', 'country_profile')
  // Remove the following line if you don't need to get only published nodes.
  -&gt;propertyCondition('status', NODE_PUBLISHED)
  -&gt;propertyCondition('title', $country_list)
  // Keep the following line, so Drupal won't check if the currently logged-in user has access to the nodes and the fields.
  -&gt;addTag('DANGEROUS_ACCESS_CHECK_OPT_OUT');
$result = $query-&gt;execute();
if (isset($result['node'])) {
  $country_list = array_flip($country_list);
  $nodes = entity_load('node', array_keys($result['node']));
  foreach ($nodes as $node) {
    unset($country_list[$node-&gt;title]);
  }
  $country_list = array_flip($country_list);
}

if (!empty($country_list)) {
  // There are nodes that need to be created; their titles are in $country_list.
}