As an addendum to David's 10-Nov-2005 posting, remember that curly braces literally mean "evaluate what's inside the curly braces" so, you can squeeze the variable variable creation into one line, like this:
<?php
${"title_default_" . $title} = "selected";
?>
and then, for example:
<?php
$title_select = <<<END
<select name="title">
<option>Select</option>
<option $title_default_Mr value="Mr">Mr</option>
<option $title_default_Ms value="Ms">Ms</option>
<option $title_default_Mrs value="Mrs">Mrs</option>
<option $title_default_Dr value="Dr">Dr</option>
</select>
END;
?>