I live in Edmonton AB Canada. My grandfather Ernst Kohli was born near Bern Switzerland in the 19th century. He and a number of his brothers and sisters emigrated to the U.S. in the 1890's or early 1900's (I have the ship manifests from the Ellis Island website). Grandpa Ernst married Marie Richenbach and they settled in California where my father Ernest Jr. was born. The family then moved to Alberta where Grandpa registered a homestead. Somewhere along the way they name was anglicized by removing the umlaut from the "o" and adding an "e", which is quite common. When I searched "koehli" in an all-america phone book a few years ago, I got a large number of hits in the east and midwest U.S.

I too have noticed that Kohli is a common (East) Indian name, but I don't know if that is a result of historical intermarriage or simply coincidence. "kohl" in english is "coal", and my swiss friend tells me that "kohli" means "coal miner" and that there are, or were at least, a lot of coal mines in the Bern area.

Incidentally, a Dutch war bride once told me that in her country, "kohli" meant "little cabbage head", and was a term of endearment.

I still have a lot of relatives in California, although I do not know them, and the name is different since it was my grandfather's sister who settled there.