The term ‘Caucasian’ was invented by a German philosopher to describe races he thought were attractive!

de bene esse: literally, of well-being, morally acceptable but subject to future validation or exception

Today, "Caucasian" usually means someone of mostly white skin tone. This was not always the case though.

Historically, "Caucasian" was used to describe the physical appearance, not necessarily just the skin tone, of people from Europe, North Africa, the Horn of Africa and Central, South and Western Asia.

"Caucasian Race" was first used by German philosopher Christopher Meiners in his book "The Outline of History of Mankind" in 1795. Meiners split humanity into two races - the Caucasians and Mongolians. His system of classification was anything but scientific though.

Meiners used the term "Caucasian" to refer to those races that he found attractive. For example, he found Germans and Tatars attractive so they were Caucasian. He found Jews and Native Americans less attractive so they were dubbed Mongolian.