Question: Italy certainly started out using the term, which is derived from Senatorial regalia.

Hitler's Germany can also pretty safely be classified as such, that's the regime most people have in mind when referring to Fasciscm.

However, did Franco ever refer to his regime as Fascist, at least during the time when the term had some level of appeal?

I am not looking to equate Franco's regime, as bad as it was, to Hitler's. Only wondering if he, or his government, **used** the term "Fascism" from Mussolini and Hitler, with whom he had somewhat cordial relations and which started out as equivalently authoritarian/militaristic.

### Edit re. "most people"

While this is admittedly a sloppy term, there is a strong association in the public mind of Fascism with Hitler's Germany.

Google's ngram are not applicable, but, when searching Google itself, you can see that my claim, while sloppy, has some validity:

[![enter image description here](https://i.stack.imgur.com/b1c21.jpg)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/b1c21.jpg)

Answer: 
The evidence from Franco's own statements strongly suggests that he did not, at least in public. In fact, from 1937, he specifically rejected the term for the Falangists, though he did concede that there were fascists within the movement. He also came close to using the word 'fascist' in a speech in 1938 but deleted it in the final version.

In early 1937 **(my emphasis)**,

> 
> **Franco had declared that it was not a matter of the Falange being a
> “Fascist” movement**: “The Falange has not declared itself fascist; its
> founder [ [José Antonio Primo de Rivera](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jos%C3%A9_Antonio_Primo_de_Rivera) ] declared so himself.” Thereafter, the custom within the
> Nationalist zone, especially among the press in the first months, of
> calling the Falangists and some other groups “Fascists” was abandoned.
> All that Franco had been willing to admit before the unification [of the Falangists and the Carlists] was
> that the supposedly non-Fascist character of the Falange “does not
> mean that there are not individual fascists … within it.”
> 
> 
> 

*Source: Stanley G. Payne and Jesús Palacios, '[Franco: A Personal and Political Biography](https://books.google.com.ph/books/about/Franco.html?id=rn6aBAAAQBAJ&redir_esc=y)' (2014)*

Nonetheless, Franco's beliefs - and those of the National Movement, as well as its propaganda - were far from being entirely divorced from fascism and, in July 1938, he almost used the word in a speech **(my emphasis)**:

> 
> Franco’s language became somewhat more “Fascist” during 1938 and 1939.
> In the draft of his speech for July 18, 1938, commemorating the second
> anniversary of the National Movement, **he applied the adjective
> “Fascist” to his regime and, more extravagantly, to the Catholic
> monarchs but decided to delete it from the final version.**
> 
> 
> 

*Source: Payne and Palacios*

Note also that Franco was influenced both by the Catholic Church and by monarchists. In fact, even before the end of the civil war, he had spoken of the possibility of eventually restoring the monarchy, and he had strongly opposed the deposing of [Alphonso XIII](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfonso_XIII) in 1931.
Franco was for all intents and purposes a fascist.

As Jos pointed out, the official (English) name of his party was ["Falangist"](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FET_y_de_las_JONS), which refers to a "phalanx" and indirectly, military rule. But the Wikipedia article points out that Franco took the title "National Chief" which was a "fascist" designation.