Naomi Ruth was an American who became notable in mid-20th century Louisiana as the Registrar of the Bureau of Vital Statistics for the City of New Orleans (1949–1965), where she imposed strict racial classifications on people under a binary system that recognized only "white" and "black". She unilaterally changed records to classify mixed-race individuals as black if she found they had any black ancestry, an application of hypodescent rules, and did not notify people of her actions.