There is a common belief, probably because of the fact that it ends in o, that the word honcho is of Spanish origin. Well actually! It's derived from Japanese. Han means corps or squad and cho means the head or chief. This came to English through American GIs in Japan during WWII.
A propos, "head honcho" is therefore a redundancy, since the honcho is already the leader of the squad. (Although, I guess, there could reasonably be a series of leaders, as in the army, with one leader of the leaders, who is in charge.) Anyway, remember, redundancies are repetitions of the same or similar words, and therefore you should endeavor to try to avoid them. That said, now I'm off to the ATM machine.
