This study revisits the Eurogang definition—any durable, street-oriented youth group whose involvement in illegal activity is part of its group identity—to evaluate its accuracy and specificity in identifying gang members within a national sample of 1000 U.S. adults. Utilizing self-nomination alongside the Eurogang criteria, respondents were classified into four groups: self-nominated gang members, Eurogang-defined members, partial Eurogang-defined members, and non-members. The findings reveal that many respondents who met Eurogang criteria described their groups not as gangs, but as informal peer associations, social cliques, or adolescent groups engaged in petty deviance. Self-nominated gang members consistently reported greater exposure to neighborhood violence, victimization, arrest, and incarceration compared to both Eurogang-defined groups, who experienced these factors at lower, though elevated, rates than the other two groups. Partial Eurogang members showed the least exposure among the three groups classified as gang-related. These findings indicate that the Eurogang definition, as currently operationalized, may be overly inclusive, capturing many groups that neither researchers nor study participants would consider a gang. To improve definitional validity, future refinements should incorporate clearer distinctions between criminal identity and minor deviance, accounting explicitly for sociolegal contexts in shaping gang involvement.