Temporarily Rename Category

We are setting up our Help Desk so that the Category is one of three departments (IT, Operations, Facilities) and each Category goes to a different group of Technicians. Unfortunately, one of our Departments will not be ready to roll out their portion of the Help Desk when the other two go live. Is it possible to temporarily change the category name to something like "Do Not Choose" so that the end users don't select it until the Department is ready? I am mostly concerned with if the category will still work with the Sub-categories and Items that we have already set up. One member of their department has been logging calls into the software and I don't want to lose those if we change the Category name and change it back in a month or so.
Is this possible?