I love
Valentina! It's beautiful and romantic and one of the strongest names I can think of. For me it's almost a perfect name except it's kind of long and would probably get shortened, and I don't like
Val or
Tina.
Valeria is pretty and airy but next to
Valentina it just feels washed out.
Valentina is blood red and
Valeria is a kind of faded pink. In Russian
Valeria has the beautiful diminutive Lera, which I like loads better than the full name.
It doesn't make me think of malaria so much, but I can see it. I don't know any Valerias so my only association is like,
Valeria Messalina. Oh, and
Valentina and
Valeria both remind me of the word valour. I think I prefer
Valerie to
Valeria, it avoids the malaria association and is more dark and subdued.
To be honest I think Carthage sounds a bit silly as a first name. It just doesn't have that quality to it, it's so strongly identified as a place name. I don't find it attractive anyway.