Standard Operating Procedure is to use the "local title" (I presume that, by this, you mean the title the singer uses, e.g., what Jean Ritchie or Richard Dyer-Bennet call it), followed by the Child designation in parentheses. For example, "Fine Flowers in the Valley (Child #20)." Versions of Child #20 are known by various titles, such as "The Cruel Mother" and "Down by the Greenwood Side-i-o."

I know a fellow who did an exhaustive research paper on "Lord Randal" (Child #12), coming up with references to 1,013 variants of the ballad, ranging through the British Isles, the Scandinavian countries (including Iceland), all across Europe, through the Middle East, and around to North Africa—interestingly enough, just about everywhere the Vikings ranged. Some things he found were downright bizarre. Such as the American variant, possibly a propaganda song put out by the dairy industry, in which Jimmie Randall's sweetheart poisons him by feeding him oleomargarine instead of real butter. AND—the American song "Billie Boy." Upon examination of the verse structure, certain words use at certain places within the verses, the fact that the form of the song is "question and answer," every verse ends with the word "mother," and food is quite prominent in the song, in this case "cherry pie" rather than "eels and eel's broth," it becomes patently obvious that the song "Billie Boy" is a comic variation of Lord Randal (Child #12)! Who'ld have thunk it!??

I first started playing the guitar and learning songs in the very early 1950s, and took an excellent course of study in the Popular Ballad from Prof. David C. Fowler in the University of Washington English Literature Department. I've been singing both professionally and for fun (hard to separate the two) since then, and I have researched a lot of folk songs and ballads. The "Local title" followed by the Child number in parentheses—that it, if the song is a ballad and has a Child number—is the way I've always seen it. The Child number makes it pretty easy to research variants of the ballad. In fact, without it, you're sort of dead in the water. But with only the Child number one doesn't know which variant you're talking about.

If the song is not a Child ballad, I generally use the name that my source (another singer, a song book, or a record) uses to identify the song.

Give this website a look:   Contemplator.   A wealth of good information here.

Don Firth