Auric Goldfinger

Auric Goldfinger is a fictional character and the main antagonist in Ian Fleming's 1959 seventh James Bond novel, Goldfinger, and the 1964 film it inspired. His first name, Auric, is an adjective meaning "of gold". Fleming chose the name to commemorate the architect Ernő Goldfinger, who had built his home in Hampstead next door to Fleming's; he disliked Goldfinger's style of architecture and destruction of Victorian terraces and decided to name a memorable villain after him. According to a 1965 Forbes article and The New York Times, the Goldfinger persona was based on gold-mining magnate Charles W. Engelhard, Jr.