How do you respond...?

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You have just called a business and asked for a specific person. The operator asks you if you know the person's extension number or department. How do you respond? Where I work, for certain types of calls, we do not have any kind of list of names due to the large size of the organization and the fact that there would be no way to keep the list updated adequately. What we do have is department extensions and extensions based on certain job titles. So when I get a caller asking for a person by name, I will ask them if they know the extension or department. Most people will answer appropriately. But then there are those who seem to not hear the question. They just keep repeating the name until I can let them know that I don't have a name listing. For example: "Could I speak with John?" "Do you know John's extension or department?" "John Smith." "I don't have a listing of names, do you know his extension number or what department he is in?" "I need to speak with John Smith." I have to end the call by saying "I am sorry but I need more information." Sometimes that doesn't get the caller to understand that I do not know who John Smith is and cannot transfer the call. Well, speaking of John Smith...I also have this problem with callers asking for people by their first names only. Of course most of the time the first names are very common first names. They know the business is large. Do they not understand that there could be multiple people with the same first names? It's not like they are calling their best friend at home. You call somewhere that has 150 employees, do you think there just might be more than one Bob or Mary in the building? What do you think?