How to name something that has sub-categories

So I have this database of my categories. And every category can have sub-categories, except for the prime-level ones. In my database I designate a row that is pointing to the category which will contain this category as its sub-category.

How do I call that? Mother Category? Maybe there is more "technical" word for that?

P.S. Sorry, English is not my native language so I don't know many words.

In conceptual modelling, where we study whole/part relationships, we would call that the whole.

A more technical name would be root.

As you're talking about using a database, I assume you might be looking for what the common technical terms are.

Generally, you'd use parent/child to describe the relationship between a category and it's sub-categories. The term root may be used to specify the container of all categories that have no parent.

I would suggest "Master Category" or "Top Category".