Most of us with some version of this name (Kohler, Koehler, Kahler etc.) should already know the reason for all the different versions and what the name means, but I haven't seen it in any E-mail so far, so just in case a few don't know the origins, here goes for at least the German version of the name: most all of us came from that old country with the name spelled Köhler, complete with the umlaut over the "o". In English, there is no way to pronounce the German "ö", although it sounds a little like "Kurler". (I had a German teacher who told us to make an "o" with our lips and then say "e", and that's the way it should sound). Anyway, our ancestors had to find a way to Anglicise the name, so some just dropped the umlaut, others replaced it with "oe", some substituted an "a" etc. So, now we get pronounced 'Kohler', 'Koler', 'Kayler', 'Kahler' even 'Koyler'. (I'm a 'Kayler').Not sure if those with "n"s or "t"s tacked on are the same root name or not. As for its meaning, I'm told that a Köhler was a man who tended the peat furnaces back in the days of soft coal fuel...köhl being an early word for coal. Does this jibe with what you know about our origins? For the Rootsweb record, I am descended from Heinrich Köhler and wife Katerina Schweinsberger, who lived in either Obersalzbach or Obersulzbach near Gelnhausen in the Grand Duchy of Hesse, some 30 kilometers east of Frankfurt. Two sons, Heinrich (Henry, Jr.born 1828),Caspar(born 1835) and a daughter Katerina(born 1832) came to America sometime in the mid 1800s and settled first in Davenport Iowa, then in St. Louis, Mo. The 'boys' were successful as brewers, operating several breweries in both cities and changed the spelling to "oe". Henry married Ottlie Schlapp in 1857 and produced: Oscar C. who married Matilda Lange...4 kids Ida married Adolph Priester...3 kids Herman unmarried Hugo Arthur married Corinne (?) widow of Max below Paula married Karl Vollmer.. 1 son Karl Max married Corinne .....2 kids Katerina married Ignatz Huber 1854 Davenport IA...3 kids Caspar married Josephine Junge in 1862 in St. Louis,Mo. Amelia "Ellie" married 1.Limberg, 2.Lemp Richard Otto married Edith krausnick Ottilie married Carl Krausnick..1 son Carl Frederick married Clara Wipperman StL..1 son (my father) Julius Henry married Alma Portner...one son. Anna married Richard Dieffenbach Newark,NJ. ..1 daughter I have accounted for all of Caspars descendents, but still have some missing links with Henry's line. Any cousins out there?