With her parents and crowds of supporters present, Amelia Earhart touched down at Oakland Airport.

In honour of her namesake, former TV traffic and weather reporter Amelia Rose Earhart symbolically finished the around-the-world flight that the famed aviatrix tragically failed to complete in 1937.

“I feel like we’ve brought Amelia Earhart home to Oakland,” she said at California’s Oakland Airport on the completion of the 39,000 kilometre journey, which took in Australia and a stopover at Darwin.

When Earhart’s plane descended from the clear sky, her mother Deborah Dale was waiting on tiptoes and at the brink of tears.

Once Earhart got off the plane, she bypassed the swarming media to hug her mother and her father, Glen Earhart.

“I have goose bumps. The hairs are standing up on my arm,” Dale said. “I am so proud of her.”

Earhart has come a long way from the days when the famous name her mother gave her used to embarrass her, so she went by Amy instead.

People would always ask if she was a pilot, and she would answer no, until she thought “Why not?”

Earhart earned her license at 21 after juggling multiple jobs and her studies at the University of Colorado Boulder to pay for flight lessons.

Now the 31-year-old who lives in Denver runs the non-profit Fly With Amelia Foundation, which sends girls aged 16 to 18 to flight school. She hopes her story and around-the-world flight will inspire girls to fly.

“Who knew she was going to do the obvious and fly?” Dale said.

Amelia Earhart became the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic in 1932. She disappeared over the Pacific while attempting to circumnavigate the globe in 1937 after setting off from Oakland.