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When I was young, my cousins and I used to use the word: "Hon" (at least that's how I would write it) to get validation from another person that something occurred.
Example:
Hon Alex that mom bought this game for us yesterday.
I think "Hon" is short for honesty or to be honest. Since I'm not from the United States and only went to visit them for summer vacations, I'm not sure where they got that expression from, a TV show or something like that. This happened in early 2000s, maybe 2004-2006.
Could it have been hunh (which is pronounced without the /n/ but with a nasalized vowel, and which might easily contain the vowel in honk, although I believe that it more often contains the vowel of hunk).
Dictionary.com defines hunh as
an interjection that conveys annoyance, confusion, or curiosity.
Since the meaning you remember was honestly,"hon" may have been short for
honest Injun
Dated, offensive US
Honestly; really.
I won't run away, honest Injun Lexico
ORIGIN OF HONEST INJUN 1870–75, Americanism; see Injun
USAGE NOTE FOR HONEST INJUN Honest Injun uses an informal, nonstandard spelling of Indian. Probably first used by Mark Twain, this expression is now dated and often perceived as insulting to or by American Indians. Though it came to mean “honestly or truly,” it may have had its origin in the contrary perception that Indians on the American frontier were not considered honest or trustworthy until they had proven themselves, for example, as scouts. See also Indian. dictionary.com
Although I remember it from my childhood, I would have thought this expression was out-of-date by the early 2000's, but perhaps not, given the date of the Scouting magazine admonition.
"Tom—honest injun, now—is it fun or earnest?" Mark Twain; The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876)
"Do yer ask honest Injun, no cheatin' nor nothin?"
"Certainly. Perfectly 'honest Injun.'" Blanche Willard Howard; One Summer (1875)
Don't use derogatory words and phrases, such as "Injun," "honest Injun," "Indian giver," "too many chiefs and not enough Indians," "as wild as a bunch of Indians," "squaw," "half-breed," or "papoose." Scouting, Vol. 85, n.6 (1997)
