My solution was orginal posted on the joomlashine forum here.

If I modify your instructions to below they work:

Menu Item -> Page Display Tab -> Show page heading -> No
Menu Item -> Options Tab -> Show Title -> Show

My Notes:

'Show Page Heading' option

This option allows you to display a page title based on the menu item and it works as follows. If enabled it will try and display each of the items in order, if one does not exist, it moves to the next:

Page Heading --> Browser Page Title --> Menu Title

To fix my problem:

Per Menu Item

Enter a Page Heading

or

Menu Item -> Page Display Tab -> Show Page Heading -> No
Menu Item -> Options Tab -> Show Title -> Show
* this will use the articles title

Set Options Globally

Global Configuration --> Articles --> "Show Tile" = Show
Global Configuration --> Menus Manager --> "Show Page Heading" = No
* this will use the articles title

Assumptions

I have all article display options (Global Configuration --> Articles) set to Off or do not display. I find this is a neater way to build small websites.