The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (30 December 2018):

primary key

    A unique identifier, often an integer, that
   labels a certain row in a table of a relational database.

   When this value occurs in other tables as a reference to a
   particular row in the first table it is called a "foreign
   key".

   Some RDBMSes can generate a new unique identifier each time
   a new row is inserted, others merely allow a column to be
   constrained to contain unique values.

   A table may have multiple candidate keys, from which the
   primary key is chosen.  The primary key should be an arbitrary
   value, such as an autoincrementing integer.  This avoids
   dependence on uniqueness, permanence and format of existing
   columns with real-world meaning (e.g. a person's name) or
   other external identifier (e.g. social security number).

   There should be enough possible primary key values to cater
   for the current and expected number of rows, bearing in mind
   that a wider column will generally be slower to process.

   (2006-05-29)